If You Shouldn't Do It--Don't!

Two sentences from two playwrights suggests a subject: The first is the tearful outcry of a boy who has seen terrible tragedy result from a series of angry, senseless circumstances. “I wish,” he says, “⎯I wish it was yesterday.”

The second is a similar wish, uttered by a woman who has presses a point too far and has received an answer she would rather not have heard. “I wish it were five minutes ago,” she says.

“I wish it were yesterday.” “I wish it were five minutes ago.” “I wish I hadn’t gone there.” “I wish I hadn’t done it.” “I wish I hadn’t said it.”

We wish we had lived so that we would not have so much reason to wish we had done differently.

This is the looking back in life that too often makes us wish we had had greater foresight. Despite our best knowledge, our best judgment, and our best planning, there are accidents; and there are honest mistakes and miscalculations and unforeseen events that intervene. But there are also sometimes stubborn mistakes, angry mistakes, or deliberately dishonest mistakes that ignore proved principles and morals and the keeping of commandments. And while we may not know exactly how we shall feel when we do something we know we ought not to do, or say something we shouldn’t say, we do know for a certainty that there will be uneasiness, anxiety, regret, sorrow, and that we shall pay a penalty equal to or greater than any so-called satisfaction received.

We do know the principle of causes and consequences, and down deep within us we do have a warning, an inner awareness and resistance against any cheap or shoddy or dishonest or immoral or cruel or unkind act or utterance.

“I wish it were yesterday”⎯I wish it were five minutes ago”⎯”I wish I hadn’t said it”⎯”I wish I hadn’t done it.”

“Would you be exempt from uneasiness,” said a time-respected source, “[then] do nothing you know or even suspect is wrong. Would you enjoy the purest pleasure; [then] do everything in your power which you [honestly] believe is right.”

And so we would plead with those who are young, and with others also: Avoid regret by standing up to standards.

If you shouldn’t do it, don’t.