FIVE THINGS YOU CAN’T RECOVER IN LIFE

Somewhere I came across a wise bit of advice in which I was reminded that there are five things we cannot recover once we’ve said or done any one of them. Once said, once done, there is no going back in time to undo what we would like to undue. It’s too late for that and all we can do is mourn our failing and rue our foolishness.

What are those five things? First, we cannot recover a stone after it is tossed. How often have we thrown stones at others believing, for instance, that they were guilty of something, and then learned to our embarrassment that they were innocent? We should never be the one to throw the first stone and, more often than not, should not throw any stones at all. For, if the truth were known, if stones were tossed only at the guilty, we would be feeling the pain of stones ourselves.

Secondly, we cannot recover a spoken word. Don’t we all know that! Who hasn’t open his or her mouth without first reflecting about what is going to come out of that mouth? We all also know that the old saying about sticks and stones hurting us but not words know that that is a lie. Words hurt and the hurt worse and longer than the pain any stone can inflict.

Thirdly, once we’ve missed the boat, we’ve missed the boat. It’s not going to turn around and come back to pick us up. In other words, we cannot recover an occasion after it has passed. We know that and more often than not we have no one else to blame when we’ve known ahead of time that we were to be somewhere and simply, well, missed the boat.

Fourth, we cannot go back in time, recover time after it is gone. Yesterday is passed and in the past. If we waste the present, it is wasted. That does not mean that we have to be active every waking moment. What it does mean is that when we are given only so much time to do something and waste the time in between, we cannot ask that we be given more time. It is gone.

And finally, and perhaps most importantly, we cannot recover a person after he or she is gone. It’s too late to do what we knew we should have done but did not and now the person has died and we can’t say what we wanted to say. If we’ve thrown a stone we should not have, if we said something that hurt, if we missed an opportunity to be there in support, if we put off doing what we said we would do, if we’ve done any or all of that and the person has died, it’s now too late.

We only go around once. And we know that. So why do we think we will be given another opportunity to take back that stone or that word, to be where we should have been or do what we should have done? Sometimes that opportunity is given to us. But we should not expect it to happen nor should it have to happen.

If we would only be attentive to what we say and do, what things we are called upon to do and places where we should be and people we should see, we would save ourselves much grief. If only!