Like twenty five percent of Americans between the ages of sixteen and fifty, Kathryn has a tattoo. She first started thinking about getting it while she was in her mid-twenties. She says that she deliberately waited a long time because as every one knows, there are people who've gotten tattoos and have regretted it by the time they were thirty. But that didn't happen to her. Instead she regretted it instantly. She hated her tattoo and just wanted it to go away.
Before this, she had prided herself on having absolutely no regrets. Yet, she did claim that she had made tons of mistakes and dumb decisions in the past. But had always felt that she made the best choice she could make given who she was at that moment and the information she had on hand. Also, she learned a lesson from it and it somehow got her to where she is today. Instead of looking back and wanting to change it, she embraced her mistakes and took them as life lessons.
But what is regret? Regret is the emotion we experience when we think that our present situation could be better or happier if we had done something differently in the past. Kathryn's tattoo was a compass. Which I know what your thinking, that isn't that bad why was she freaking out over it? Well what she says to the crowd is, " some of your own regrets aren't as ugly as you think they are." What she's trying to say, is that something could be the biggest deal to you, yet it actually isn't that bad. For example, her tattoo, what most people thought looked good she hated it.
She says that If we have goals and dreams and want to do our best and if we don't wanna hurt people or lose them then we should feel pain when things go wrong. The point isn't to live without any regrets the point is to not hate ourselves for having them. The lesson that she ultimately learned from her tattoo is that we need to learn to love the flawed imperfect things that we create and to forgive ourselves for creating them. Also that regret doesn't remind us that we did badly, it reminds us that we know we can do better.
This video has make me think about my own mistakes and regrets. I will admit that at the time I had thought it was the end of the world. For instance, I stay up all night watching tv instead of working on a class project that's due the next day. I go to school, without it completed and get a zero on it, which brings my grade two whole letter grades down. At the moment what would feel like the end of the world, actually was just a bump in the road. That one grade is not going to shape my entire life. I learned from the experience is to not wait till the last minute or watch tv instead of doing my work. I can take my mistakes and regrets and change them into life lessons.