These games that we play, and think it’s just fun, they can really damage people. And by the time we start to suspect the damage we have done and start to pull back, it’s already too late and the victims are left reeling and wounded for the rest of their lives or for a very long time afterwards. These games of hearts, of love and sex, and of adventures, of selfish desires and of fun.

Sometimes we think we’re just expressing ourselves, or just seeking the meaning of life, or just getting out of life everything that it has to offer, or just doing what “everybody else” does, or just living life to the full, or just making sure we don’t die one day with regrets in our hearts of the things we left undone, or simply assuaging our own personal propensities, or even getting back at someone, or maybe trying to experience for ourselves how something feels, or just having some harmless fun.

I used to think that the things I would one day regret the most are the things I left undone, the opportunities I missed because I did not try to get them. But now I realise that the pain and regret that comes from doing certain things is even worse, and is real, and stays with you. You can’t run away from them because it is real and something you actually did. And all the apologies in the world has not made them go away. The only consolation, if any, is that your heart has learned a deep lesson that should, hopefully, make you a better person for the rest of this life and also in your subsequent reincarnations on Earth. Hearts hurt for a very long time.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains