Regrets....

I saw a post on LinkedIn the other day that got me thinking. The post (from memory) showed the results from asking a bunch of people on their deathbeds what they regretted in their life, and listed the top five. And it made me wonder - if I died today, or tomorrow, what regrets would I have looking back on my life? Not the why-did-I-do-that-stupid-thing regrets, though they can pop up now and then. More the, why-didn't-I-do-this-good-thing sort of regrets. The sort of things that I haven't done - but could still do. That could shape what I do in the future. And I think I've got a few that I can talk about.

First, a simple one. I would regret that I hadn't travelled much - seen much of the world, experienced different cultures, met different people. The internet is a great way to do bits of that, and to connect with people from anywhere and everywhere - but it's very different to being on the streets of another country.

I've travelled overseas twice so far in my life; once to Thailand, and the other time to India. Each was for a couple of weeks, and both were mission trips of a sort. Thailand was with school, back in 2008, and mostly around Chiang Mai (main city in north Thailand); India was in 2016 with a band that I was part of at the time, around New Delhi and Mumbai. So I guess another one will be due in 2024? The closest I've had to an overseas holiday was my honeymoon, which was Tasmania early this year (and was awesome! Tasmania is beautiful). But yeah, going overseas is difficult and expensive when you live in Australia. And then the pandemic happened 😅So yeah, overseas travel isn't happening any time soon. Maybe in another few months we might maybe get to see New Zealand? And that's about it. So, travel within Australia, then! And there's still plenty just in Australia that I haven't seen. There's still plenty just within New South Wales that I haven't seen. Australia is massive, folks. I mean, a big part of it is pretty much just empty desert - but even so, still big. I haven't gotten to the Northern Territory or South Australia at all yet, so that would be good at some point. Uluru! Need to see Uluru. Outside of Australia, though, I'd love to go to NZ, the UK (like, all of it, not just England), most of the Mediterranean too. Part of me would also love to do Everest, but it is crazy dangerous and crazy expensive. So...maybe just base camp? But it feels weird going that far and only going to base camp, too.

Another simple one would be not having deeper relationships with people. I have a lot of awesome, amazing people in my life. And I chat to them online now and then, or interact with them on social media. But it would be rather awesome to interact with them in real life a bit more, to spend more time with people. Again, that has some restrictions in the middle of a pandemic - but thankfully, there's much less of that here now than there used to be.

I think another regret would just be the amount of stuff that's still just in my head and not out anywhere else. Because if I die, then obviously it dies with me - we don't have brain hard drives yet. And even if we did, who on earth would sort through all of that? But yeah - there are just so many songs, stories, thoughts and ideas rumbling around in here that haven't had their time to shine yet. And it's hard knowing how to get them out there - for a start, I only have so much time and energy in the day, and most of the stuff in my head doesn't get me money to be able to pay bills or get food. It's also quite easy for stuff to just get lost on the internet, and not be heard amongst everything else that's out there. The internet is a content machine. And if I'm constantly pushing out stuff, it can feel like people just stop listening and caring after a while as well, because it's just too much. I guess it depends on the quality of what you're making, really, though.

But that's something I struggle with, when I think about it - just the idea of dying with so many things unsaid or unshared, when I feel like so much of what's in my head is meant for other people just as much (and sometimes more) than it is for me.

Perhaps my biggest one, though, would be not having lived life to the full. I feel like there's so much time for me that has just been wasted, doing next to nothing, or nothing important. And I know, "nothing's wasted", "everything teaches us something", "God uses it all later", and I believe all of that in one sense. But in another sense - there's been a lot of times when I know I could be doing something better with that time. And I'm not just talking a few minutes or hours here and there. Sometimes it feels like I've had weeks, or months, even years, when I'm just wandering around aimlessly and really not living. And that's hard.

I think part of the reason for that has been mental health, to be sure. It's difficult to "live life to the full" when things like depression, or anxiety, or whatever else, keep crippling you. But I think part of it is also just the way our world is set up at the moment. Work is an inevitable part of life - and we can argue about whether or not that's a good thing, but it is challenging when what you enjoy doing doesn't really line up with work that you can do. And sure, plenty of people don't enjoy their work, and they manage, you say - but I guess I have a higher bar than "getting by". And I think it's not unreasonable that people should be able to enjoy their work, considering how much of their time it takes up. But I won't rant about that here, because I rant about it all too often.

Those are the main ones that I can think of, off the top of my head. Maybe I'm missing a couple, I'm not sure. And I'm not sure how much this is going to change what I do going forward, or how much it can change things - much of this is hamstrung by pandemic and mental health and the like. But it's useful to at least recognise it, I think, and work through it.

But what about you? What would your regrets be - and how could you use that to change what you do going forward?

The Importance Of Truth

There are many different ideals that people can have and hold. I've talked about some over the years on this blog, and about their importance to me. Today, I want to talk about the importance, and significance, of truth.

But first, I want to define the sort of truth that I'm talking about. Perhaps the simplest way to think about it is "absolute truth", rather than "relative truth". I'm not talking here about things that you might consider true for you, or that I might consider true for me. Though these are important concepts in their own right that can shape our perception of reality and experience, these aren't what I'm wanting to talk about.
No, I'm wanting to talk about absolute truth.

Part of the trick, though, with absolute truth, is that you can't ever really know when you've arrived at it. How do you know that something is absolutely true? Some things might be self-evident (water being wet, and fire being hot), but many things are not. Everything can be questioned, and often is questioned by somebody.
But just because absolute truth is hard (or sometimes impossible) to find, doesn't mean that we can't head towards it, or have it as a goal.

Speaking truth is where we start, and this is radical in itself. We live in a world where white lies and deception are often the norm. Social media, of course (as well as online presence in general), is a perfect example of this. We craft and shape what people can see according to what we want people to think. Now, of course, there's an element to this that is important, in terms of safety - we don't want everyone knowing where we live, and neither do we want brief acquaintances knowing intimate details of our lives, more often than not. And that's okay - that's just being wise about who you share aspects of your life with. But people will often go a level beyond that, crafting a persona online that's very different to who they actually are.
And so when we speak the truth - we are cutting through all of this. We are displaying honesty, integrity, realness - and these are things that are desperately needed in our world. People are hungry for it, as is evidenced by the continuing trend in that direction. We're seeing more and more celebrities opening up about "life behind the curtain", giving glimpses at what reality is like, because people are realising the power of honesty. They're realising the power of truth.

But this is only the start. It's not enough for us to only speak truth ourselves. We also need to encourage it elsewhere - and perhaps more so, call out falsehood and deception.
People are quick to cry "fake news" these days, and point fingers, and click on bait. But we're seeing less real sources, and more handwaving - or presenting sources as credible that often aren't. And scams and shams are almost part and parcel of our online world these days. Some people will know how to recognise and avoid these - but many don't. People will listen to what others are saying simply because it sounds nice, or because it's coming from someone in a position of authority, or because it's speaking to their fears or desires. And they get taken advantage of, much too often, and much too easily.
A great thing to keep in mind here are the logical fallacies, and the cognitive biases. Those two sites aren't an exhaustive list, but they're a good place to start. Unfortunately, our psychology is often working against us in these sorts of things. So it's important that we are calling out what we are able to recognise as deception and falsehood, and champion truth.

Of course, there's a big difference between what is true, and what is good. Something can be true and bad, or good and false. Too easy examples are Hitler and unicorns. But often, trying to hide from a bad truth can make its impact worse - it can seem as though you're denying its badness, or denying its reality, rather than just trying to escape that reality. We see that today with Holocaust deniers, for instance, but there are plenty of other places you can see it. Denying that we're sick, or struggling with mental/physical health, can stop us from getting help/treatment that we often need, for instance.
On the flip side, lies are often at their most potent when they are mostly true, or have a truth within them. A very, very simple example of this is the number of products that advertise as having "no sugar" - but then don't really tell you much about what other sweeteners they put in instead. And so figuring out what is true, and what is not, is often extremely difficult.

But I think that it's a goal worth fighting for. It's why I try to fight against the biases that I've grown up with or learned over time, and work to make sure minorities are heard more clearly so that they can be understood and not misjudged. It's why I engage in discussion and debate. It's why I constantly evolve my ideas about who I am, what God is like, what the Bible is saying. Because my understanding of the truth develops and grows. I don't pretend to ever know the complete, or absolute truth, fully - I don't think anyone can - but I hope that I keep heading in the right direction. And I hope that you do too.

An Update.

Well, the site looks a little bit different! I haven't updated it since back in - I think 2012 or 2013. And it probably shows. So the look is now a bit different, and I've updated a few of the pages as well. The general layout is still the same, though, I'm fairly sure.

I've updated it for a couple of reasons. Firstly - it's just been long enough, it needed a change!
But I think the big reason was that the look of the blog before didn't reflect where I was at, and how I was going with life.

The previous update on the blog I made when I was having one of the best years of my life, feeling absolutely amazing and on top of the world, and ready to launch into a new chapter of living. I renamed the blog "New Life" in Greek (because nerdy Christian, woo), put light colours and pretty birds around the place.

Since then, quite a bit has changed. I've figured out that I'm struggling with depression. I've been in and out of a number of jobs, and had some fairly decent chunks of being basically unemployed. And now, we're in the middle of a pandemic (though hopefully here in Australia we're climbing out of it for the most part), and my moods are all over the place. I'm attempting to figure out where the heck I'm heading (clue: still have no idea), and what on earth I actually want life to look like. Oh, and I'm married as well, which is awesome, but is also very different to living for 27 years before that and being almost always single and looking for someone to suddenly being in a committed relationship. So that's something I'm still very much figuring out too.

I also don't post nearly as much as I used to (or as much as I'd like, if I'm honest). I've usually got a billion ideas going in my head about things I could write, but who's going to read my bits and pieces? Probably a few folks here and there I guess maybe. We'll see. But maybe after I've updated it and it looks nicer - and more like where I'm at - I'll feel more up to writing a bit more frequently and sharing it to places.

So yes. Let me know what you think of the new look! I know it's quite different. I have intentionally also gone with a dark look, because I appreciate websites that have a dark background when I'm searching the web at night, for my eyes that are a bit sensitive to the brighter and whiter light at night.