Oodles of Regrets

I literally function constantly on this stupid wavelength where I am always judging my minute to minute, and increased scale, activity and activity doings.  I go back and forth in judgment of whether or not it was worth it, what I should have done differently, what I learnt from it.  My introspection is top notch, but its also really annoying and feels compulsive.

For example, I got to the Korean grocery store, Zion, that's walking distance from my house.  I get a little lost in my head whenever I go to buy groceries.  I literally wander the floor, looking at every item, and without much intention of buying anything, but open to it looking at things.  I compare prices everywhere I look.  I look at everything with a coupon sign and nothing that's not a discounted item.  I look at different types of milk, which I rarely drink, comparing their prices to Albertsons.  I get tired of the lights inside, but I keep wandering the store.

I finally decide on what to buy - I get a small processed sweet, usually, like a red bean bun.  As I'm leaving I get strung with a million regrets. Why did I stay in the store that long?  I don't even like being in the store, everyone is Asian but me.  But its cheap.  But I didn't buy vegetables, and I am always supposed to buy vegetables when I got to a grocery store.  But they were expensive. But I could've bought a vegetable and it would have cost less than this red bean thing, and now I see on the ingredient list that the first thing was sugar, not red bean, so it was a stupid purchase anyways.  I spent an entire 40 minutes in the store and the one thing I bought wasn't up to my standards.  How stupid, what a waste.

Then I think all about how its nicer being outside - fresh air, why did I stay inside so long?  But then again, I have nothing to do today, so it doesn't really matter how long.  But wasn't it still worthless to spend that long inside, instead of outdoors, and especially when I ended up spending money on this red bean thing?  Then since it cost $2.03, I had to get $0.93 back in change, and I hate coins.

You get the point. I go through these excessive regret and judgment cycles with literally everything I do.  Judgements, should-of's, and regret at not doing what I should have done, and then false wisdom as I see how that was what I needed.  Usually, I think I somehow should have been doing something else more worthwhile, and it only makes sense to me to judge myself for not having done that.

Anyways, point being, that I want to stop the regrets and judgments surrounding everything.  The obvious way to do that is to just be present, since if you're present, those regrets and judgements aren't happening and are thus of no concern.  Things that you think about are never really happening.  They are hardly ever fixed to the present moment, even though they may be triggered by something present.  They aren't the real thing.  And they suck!  I hate going through these regret spirals where I always learn something from, like 'I should get better at knowing what I want when I go grocery shopping', and at that moment I understand a little bit more of my world.

But they never make me feel any better.  I can understand and introspect all I want, and it never seems to make things any better.  I don't want to learn and grow an introspect.  I don't want to be in my head.  I'm never trying to make things better, and there's no intention at all, its just mind wander.     Since mind wander hasn't been working for me in the past, its necessary that I learn to try to be present, since I do believe that will give me feelings that I value of curiosity and wonder, and hopefully connection.  When in contrast, my introspection is very isolating, because its all about me, and doesn't serve to open me paths to other people or things, for the most part.

I've been thinking of absolutely the funniest things recently in my mind wander.  Like, 'Marissa, you are cold all the time, think warming thoughts!  Curiosity is bright'.  I'm not sure how these fit it in because right now, my mind is at times delighting me.  But its a small amount of time, compared to the plain mind wander over past events.

I know to be true, by reading, and a little by personal experience, that being present is really a good thing and is a positive goal to move towards.  You can literally choose to be in the present at absolutely any point at any time, its not something that needs to be put off.  As in, its not something hard or that you have to learn the theoretics of, before doing.  So why would I endlessly put it off? I find it scary.  Currently, I find it scary.  That's something that can change.