Regrets: everybody has them. They come in all shapes and sizes and can ambush you at any time. There’s a plethora of quotes about regrets. Here’s one from William Shatner: ‘Regret is the worst human emotion. If you took another road you might have fallen off a cliff’.

I often look into the past. I need my experiences to write. But personal history is a dangerous place to go fishing for ideas. Regrets lurk there, like sharks waiting to bite into the present. I used to have too many regrets. Groundhog Day was (and still is) one of my favourite movies. It’s a well-made film, but I liked it for different reasons. I wanted Phil Connor’s day to happen to me so that I could get things right.

‘I should have …’ I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve said that.

But something happened to me five years ago that helped me to overcome regret. When my first child was born, and I looked into his eyes, I understood that I shouldn’t regret a single moment of my life. If one of those moments hadn’t happened exactly the way that it had, and my personal timeline was different, I might never have laid eyes on Harrison. I wouldn’t give him or his brother up for all the second chances in the world!

So – I’ll leave you with someone famous to tell you exactly what to do the next time you feel a bit of regret. Click here

JKB

I was sitting on the train watching the suburbs pass by. Picket fences, parks, factories and commercial real estate. Someone was hanging washing on a tiny balcony in a tall apartment block. I felt alone. Insignificant. This is why we need an ego. It makes us the centre of the Universe, despite the Copernican reality of our existence. Egos are our existential gravity.

Problems occur – and I believe this is the root cause of a lot of humanity’s issues – when insecurity starts feeding the ego. It becomes difficult to see past our picket fences, if our existential gravity grows too strong. People and their personalities start to seem paper-thin, as the expanding ego distorts reality. It’s easy to neglect the one-dimensional.

In conclusion … Even the humble have an ego. It keeps us centred. The trick is to accept our insignificance. Then we can truly appreciate that each of us plays an equal part in a much bigger picture, in which even the smallest thing is perfect and beautiful.

Jonathan K Benton

Balancing the budget is important. I’m not an economist but it makes sense. On a micro level, if my own household cannot balance its books it would sink. Here’s the problem, though. The median income in Australia is around 58k (the average income is skewed to approximately 75k because of the hefty salaries earned by Australia’s wealthiest citizens). The population is growing – it’s incorrect to think that if the economy (under its current model) grows the whole country benefits. The reality is that the median wage is not rising anywhere near as fast as the cost of living, as prices are increased to grow profit.

For example: the cost to use the trains in Brisbane has risen by at least 22.5 per cent in the last 2 years. Power has risen by over 20 percent too. Petrol will likely rise more than it normally would in light of the new federal budget, and do not dismiss the effect $7.00 per person per visit to the doctors will have on a family budget that is already squeezed tight.

I’ve seen no evidence from either of Australia’s two major political parties to suggest they can solve the real problem, which I have already outlined on an emotional level in a previous blog.

 There’s a lot to be grateful for in Australia. It’s a beautiful democratic country alive with culture and brimming with talent. Pure socialism works in a kibbutz, but not at a national level where large administrations sick with self-preservation and greed suck up money and resources that should be for the people. Nobody wants to experience communism. Some bright spark – someone a lot smarter than me – needs to create a new sustainable evolutionary economic model that encourages entrepreneurial talent and yet does not forget the median, or the needy. I believe we need to change our perception of ‘reward’ and truly transform (at an emotional level) how we perceive ‘status’, while not losing some of the core values, like freedom of choice, that underpin our society.

Signing off

Jonathan K Benton

The world is full of remarkable talents – being a good person is the single most inspiring thing anyone can be. Occasionally I stumble across someone or something that makes me leap out of my chair and punch the air with excitement.  This happened the other night during The Voice Australia. Several elements combined to give me that fuel-injected moment of elation – that ‘life rocks’ feeling. Harry Healy sang one of my favourite songs of all time and he sang it well. He chose Romeo and Juliet because it was his wedding song. True love – it gets me every time.

But it was not Harry’s performance – as brilliant and polished as it was – that made me leap out of my chair. It was his proud family standing in the green room watching him transfix a nation. It was their moment too. Love, in its many forms, is truly inspirational.

Jonathan K Benton