Do you regret being born?

[McDamned]

So moving towards that goal is not applicable for 'something worth living for'? Do you just assume that humanity should already be at this place and disregard the entire process of establishing such a thing?

The ('our') current progression doesnt leave much room for establishing such as we breed like rabbits. We are prone to exploration and development and dont have any natural predators other than ourselve's. Hence nothing is keeping us from destroying nature to fulfill 'our potential' which is the creation of a world in which everything is beneficial to our expansion but without much regard for other forms of life, not even for those elements of life enabling us to breathe. And while there is 'a movement' it doesnt carry any momentum like the opposite does, all political power is wielded by those that want to expand, preservationists are by far THE minority in this world, the lesser ones if you will.

Edit: This sounds like it is coming across in an accusing tone. I don't mean it in that way. I am actually just curious how you see this.

Guessed such.

 

[oh-kay?]

It's always greener on the other side of the fence, until you step into the shoes of those who occupy that residence. People have always worn masks to obscure their own pain, so they can seem less vulnerable to those who would spread their own misery on others.

I find that I'm most vulnerable when I am defending myself, because my own actions attract ridicule. My emotions are on high alert and my thinking is all about putting up walls to keep out the demons that have always been inside of those walls.

I find that I am more on the lookout for certain trigger words or actions that I ave convinced myself mean one thing and ne thing only. People hate me! What i've found is that I was walking through life with an ever increasing chip on my shoulder that would inevitably collapse we into a puddle of nervous twitters.
I've, many times have wished I was never born and a few times have laid a ready made noose around my neck, but I always fund that when I did that I was trying to be the person I thought other people wanted me to be and that in failing to reach that standard, I hadn't satisfied the image of myself that I projected on others.

I don't really know how I got into this mind frame, but I knew I was destroying myself from inside out and could never accomplish anything while doing so.

 

[Cucuboth]

No and Yes.

I don't regret being born. Yet, a lot of the time, I feel like maybe I shouldn't have been, because I just don't seem to fit in anywhere. With anyone. All I seem to do is make people either annoyed at me, or they are disgusted by me. Even in my family, it feels like they had one child too many. I guess, what I'm trying to say is that while I don't regret being born, it sure feels like most people that I know, or even just encounter, regret that I was .....

 

[Peaches]

Some days I regret being alive, but being born, I had no hand in that

 

[Magna]

Never really regret being born or living !
Only regretting some of the choices I have made in life and maybe if I didn't I would of had a different/better one ...

 

[Frostburn]

There have been times when I have questioned the reason for my existence and why I was even born. I now feel my life does have purpose even if I've had dark thoughts of even ending it because of my depression.

Thought I'd share this poem from Book of Job since it is related to the topic and it helped me to find written words that reflected my feelings at the time.

After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. 2 He said:
3 “May the day of my birth perish,
and the night that said, ‘A boy is conceived!’
4 That day—may it turn to darkness;
may God above not care about it;
may no light shine on it.
5 May gloom and utter darkness claim it once more;
may a cloud settle over it;
may blackness overwhelm it.
6 That night—may thick darkness seize it;
may it not be included among the days of the year
nor be entered in any of the months.
7 May that night be barren;
may no shout of joy be heard in it.
8 May those who curse days curse that day,
those who are ready to rouse Leviathan.
9 May its morning stars become dark;
may it wait for daylight in vain
and not see the first rays of dawn,
10 for it did not shut the doors of the womb on me
to hide trouble from my eyes.

 

[reynard_muldrake]

Can one regret being born? It's not as if we have a say in the matter. I do myself *wishing* I weren't born. You (generally speaking) don't exactly develop a lust for life after constantly failing to acquire what you want. After experiencing too many downs and too little ups, how could I experience happiness over my birth?

 

[there is no hope]

Yes, without a doubt.
I had two near-brushes with death at an early age, and most people (myself concluded) believed I really should have been dead from either of them. Both are probably why I developed with damage.

 

[ardour]

The thought crosses my mind.

My father was a ped, and my mother, a decent and kind person, was naïve. Nobody on that side could understand why she married him.

I’m ugly and have subpar intelligence. It feels like society's carrying me, like I’m taking up space.

 

[Aisha]

Why regret circumstances beyond my control? Conception and birth don't happen through personal choice. The only thing it's possible to have a say in is life beyond that. And even then, why regret the past once it has happened? No amount of wishing will change it.

 

[TheRealCallie]

Why regret circumstances beyond my control? Conception and birth don't happen through personal choice. The only thing it's possible to have a say in is life beyond that. And even then, why regret the past once it has happened? No amount of wishing will change it.

This. I don't do regrets because they won't change anything. Aside from that, what has happened to me in my life has taught me the lessons I needed to learn to be who I am today and give me what I have today.

 

[Kitsune_Tora]

Sometimes, especially if I'm in a dark place. But for the most part, no.

 

[constant stranger]

I don't regret being born but I do regret being born into my family. Even more, way more, I regret so many of my choices these last 40 years.

 

[Cataplasme]

Sometimes I do. Because if I wasn't I wouldn't have to deal with the inevitable fact I will die and I won't have to think about nil and infinity.
And it wouldn't be sad because I would just never have existed. But now I do, so it's not like I can change that.

 

[h3donist]

How the fresia can anyone "regret being born"? It's not like you had a say in the matter.

Whenever I read such idiocy I am reminded of this quote by Dawkins

“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?”

 

[Cataplasme]

So because you didn't chose you can't be unhappy about it ? I think that's ******* stupid to say that.
It would be like being alive or existing is a chance, it's just something that happened. You sound like the people against abortion who use this argument. Being alive is not necessarily a gift or a chance. Thinking like that is messed it makes people give birth to babies who will badly suffer their all very short life because the parents don't want to abort them, like being alive is necessarily a good thing.

 

[Aisha]

So because you didn't chose you can't be unhappy about it ? I think that's ******* stupid to say that.
It would be like being alive or existing is a chance, it's just something that happened. You sound like the people against abortion who use this argument. Being alive is not necessarily a gift or a chance. Thinking like that is messed it makes people give birth to babies who will badly suffer their all very short life because the parents don't want to abort them, like being alive is necessarily a good thing.

The title of the thread is about regret. Not about whether or not you're happy to be alive or grateful for it.

 

[h3donist]

The question was "Do you regret being born" - To regret something implies you had a choice in the matter - you didn't, so you can't regret it. It's like saying "I regret a railway line being at the back of my house" - you didn't put it there so how can you regret it? You can only regret things that were your responsibility in the first place - and even then it is possible to live a life without regret.

I could say "I regret meeting my wife" (we've just split up) but actually although it was a horrible time and the breakup costly, she did persuade me to quit the job I hated and find the job I am in now, where I have been much happier and made many new friends, so I choose to look at it like that rather than focussing on the negatives.

 

[Cataplasme]

Ok it was a bad wording but I see what the person wanted to say and I think objectively most people understood it.
It doesn't change the fact that what h3donist chose to justify why he thinks he's stupid doesn't seem to have to do with it but with the fact "we are the lucky one" to be born, and I don't think that is necessarily the case.

h3donist you are picking on the use of the word when your quote and example to justify it has nothing to do with it but the actual fact you think people should focus on the good and it's their responsibility if they don't do so.

 

[ladyforsaken]

I think we're all entitled to perceive how life is for each of us. I get what h3donist is saying and I personally agree and don't see how one could regret being born. They can be unhappy about it, but regret is out of the question cos they didn't have that choice to make. The parents can say they regret their child being born because they made a choice. In some cases, they have no choice but that's a different story altogether.

I also get what you're saying, Cataplasme. Though I don't think it's stupid for someone to think the way h3donist does. It makes logical sense. Yes some of us are not lucky enough in life (I should know) but what's the point of whining and "regretting" (if you want to use that word in this way) life when you can try to work your life around whatever honeysuckle you have to go through. Why do you want to spend your life feeling miserable when you can try to change that?

That's all I'll say. This isn't a debate, more of personal opinions. I don't regret being born even after all that I've been through. I feel privileged to this life and even though many times I have wanted to give up, not once have I regretted being alive because to me, regret is where you really wish you could go back in time to change the choices you've made.