Dear Me,

Do you ever stop and think of your younger self and wish you could go back and shake some sense into that younger you?

There is a movie called "Shawshank Redemption", maybe you've heard of it. If you haven't, stop reading this and go watch it now. Then come back and finish reading this, because I have some really great things to tell you about the character named Red from that movie. In Stephen King's novel which the film was based on, the character named Red is an Irish man with red hair. However, the role in the film eventually went to the actor Morgan Freeman (a decision which I am very glad the casting crew made). Morgan Freeman plays that character so well he makes me believe he could be a black Irishman. Red makes a statement in the movie towards the end of his prison sentence (which you now know because you just watched the film, right? Cause I don't want to spoil this for you, you've been warned).
After the council that determines if he gets paroled asks him if he knows what rehabilitated means this is what he says:

There's not a day goes by I don't feel regret. Not because I'm in here, because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then: a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try to talk some sense to him, tell him the way things are. But I can't. That kid's long gone, and this old man is all that's left. I got to live with that. Rehabilitated? It's just a bullshit word. So you go on and stamp your form, sonny, and stop wasting my time. Because to tell you the truth, I don't give a shit.

So, yes, I feel like Red sometimes. Sometimes I want my younger self to know what's ahead of him. I think people that say they have no regrets haven't committed any act worthy of regret. That's just my opinion, but the word regret exists for a reason, because there are things in our lives, if given the opportunity to change, I'm sure we wouldn't do the same way, but then again we might not know what was better unless we made the choice in the first place. Something to ponder, but I think the greatest wisdom is found in climbing out of a hole we dug ourselves into in the first place.