Pain and Anguish

Well, maybe not the anguish so much. But it's a phrase I love. Pain and anguish. 

I found this intriguing quote on Pinterest. Sometimes I can't help myself and I surf the Pinterest in between drawing words out of my brain and trying to put them in some semblance of coherent order in a Word document. 

We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons. 

Jim Rohn

I'm always a little doubtful about attributing quotes I've found on the internet. It's too easy to fool a gullible person like me, but I like the quote.

Discipline is pain. Sometimes anguish. Maybe that second one is a little melodramatic. I have trouble sitting still unless I'm reading or drawing. I don't settle well into routines. Life changes also throw me off my stride. (I used to think there was a limited amount of those in a year or a month but this is naive.) I don't travel well or change easily. I'm not convinced anyone really handles change with actual equanimity. But maybe these people exist. I am not one of them.

But regret is something I dread. I'm not sure if it's possible to get to the end of your life without some regret but I'd really like to try. Regret is it's own brand of pain... and anguish. And this is why I write, even when I doubt, even when it's hard and even when I don't really want to. The fear of regret is real and like so many others, I don't want to get to the end of life and look back and just see myself working to live.