Sunday, June 1, 2008

Regrets...

At my favorite Unitarian Universalist tradition today -- the Coming of Age ceremony for our 9th graders -- McKenzie, a young woman who has stood out for me at the church for several years, when I met her in a class I helped teach about "Neighboring Faiths," offered her thoughts on who she is and is not.

Always much more confident and comfortable being who she is than I remember myself at 15, she had some wonderful things to say to the adult congregants gathered about her own spiritual guidelines...about the difference between dreaming (moving toward your goals) and obsessing (focusing on something that just gets you stuck).

She also had this excellent insight, which I asked her for permission to reprint here:
"Regret is being unable to learn from our mistakes."
And, a line that I'm happy to say that my 9-year-old daughter just recited to me from memory:
"Don't regret mistakes. Acknowledge them and learn from them."

-- Mikki

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