Wasted Words, Wasted Time....

"Should have"
"Could have"
"If Only"
And "If I were you"...

Shoulda, and Coulda the slang for
the first two, are word pals. Some
times used in place of each other,
or with each other.

"Should have"... we say with regrets of
something we did or did not do.
"Could have"... we say with regrets of
something you could have done,
and didn't.
Regrets is a place we should not
spend a long time at. Instead of
"Should have"/"Could have"...
we should replace it with ...
Next time I will do it better.
Next time... and then let go of it.

"If Only" is worse than Should
have/could have. Because we
spend so much time there. I use
to, when I was in my 30's spend
many nights... Hours of the night..
many hours of the night. Hashing over
IF ONLY I had done it this way.
IF ONLY, I had said this,
IF ONLY I had found the strength
to stick it out longer, MAYBE,
(which follows IF ONLY around a lot).
IF ONLY, I had done this, or said
that, MAYBE he wouldn't have gone
and done this. MAYBE the kids would
have done this or that. After about
4 years and so many restless sleep,
so many wasted hours, I decided not
to spend time on IF ONLY anymore.
I learn that if I did something, I did it
with the best judgement I had at the time.
So spending hours second guessing
myself was a waste and to get over it.
So every time I found myself start with
IF ONLY, I would tell myself to STOP.
It is over, it can't be redone. You made
a decision, now live with it. If you don't
like how it turn out, next time take
longer judging. Which allowed
me to sleep. It isn't easy, because we
beat ourselves up, far more than anyone
else would. But it can be done.

Then there is the dumb remark.
IF I WAS YOU....
No one can be me, no one can
have my feelings about things,
my direction in life. Been where
I have been, and that is what makes
me. Just as I can never ever be
you. Yet people use that phase,
over and over. Why it was never
replaced with, if that were to happen
to me, I would handle it this way.

Myself, I try not to tell anyone how to
do anything unless they ask me.
And those who know me well, don't
ask me, because I don't have tact
and usually tell people exactly what
I think. I don't say it rudely, just I say
it how I see it. But I usually start it off
with, have you thought of it this way?
Hopefully that is better.