A One-Way Trip

There's a woman I knew from a bungled film-production venture many years ago. She still brings up the dead project in her conversations today. It seems she just can't get it off herself.

She wanted so much to act in a movie. Together with some moneyed friends, they put up a small movie company. Then they called me in to discuss their first film.

At the outset I cautioned them on a lot of issues, among which was the quality of talent that we had to bring to the screen. It occurred to me that the woman thought money was all that was required. And she couldn't be more wrong.

We needed a big name to entice people to watch our movie. The woman had to be in the lead role, and she was a virtual nobody. But perhaps we could make up for her lack in public image by harnessing her acting skills.

She swore to me she would cooperate, that she would do anything to learn and to excel in the acting art. Good, I thought. But, then, that was all she ever did - promise. Once the production process started, she was immediately giving me headaches.

That movie project never really took off. I quit after just two shooting days. I opted for other, better uses for my time and effort.

"Had I taken my passion for acting seriously," the woman tells friends, "I would have already become an established movie star by now." Her bigger regret, though, may yet be the fact that she was such a spoiled brat with no clear direction in life; anyone would be damned to join her in her joy ride to nowhere. She is hoping still; "I'm only in my mid-40s. It's not very late," she says.

The would-be movie star is stuck in her fantasies. She is holding on to a possibility that had long ceased to be. And the chance that now exists only in her hopes and dreams is like a gallstone, causing her life constant irritation.

In the main, life is a one-way trip. There are, for the great majority of us, no second chances. We learn precious lessons along the way - not for us to do better the next time around, but so that we become better as we go onwards.

There is no use for regrets. We can only learn from every mistake. Then we move on, a little more prepared to face the next hurdles.

Many men and women of extraordinary accomplishments succeed because they have learned to free themselves from the shackles of regret. They, instead, use the lessons from past wrong choices and misdeeds to propel them to excellence. They have learned, as Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "to not clutter up their minds with might-have-beens."

Learning from our mistakes can help us to redirect our conduct and patterns of living. Wrong deeds and wasted times past are irrevocable. But realizing our blunders can prompt us to start planning for better performance and better use of our time.

Those of us who will no longer be stars can just be better persons. There is no point in dreaming stale dreams. No point in hoping that yesterday will come back tomorrow.

The lessons we learn from past mistakes shall lay down for us a better path to follow. Missed opportunities, although forever gone, shall make us value more every next one to come our way. And may life continually teach us to seize every opportunity to do good, every chance to show love, because we won't pass this way again.

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