Can't Regret What I Did For Love

I've always loved a line that comes at the end of the play "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" (I can't find my copy, so will have to paraphrase) when they are standing on the platform with nooses around their necks and one turns to the other and says, "There must have been a moment, in the beginning, when we could have said no, but we missed it." That's life: you answer a summons from the King and Queen of Denmark to hang out with your ol' buddy Hamlet because you have no way of knowing it will end with a betrayal by your friend that results in your hanging. Of course, sometimes you answer summons that lead to great things or others that simply go nowhere. You will always miss the moment when you could have said no. Furthermore, you must always risk on the side of saying yes. (I'm not talking about known risky behavior, I'm talking about living.) I could be spending my hours in the darkness fretting and regretting that I made the decision to photograph those beads last week, that the beads spilled, that I wasn't three inches to my left when I stood up after picking up the beads so that it would have been my shoulder that smacked into the handrail and not my head. I could have said no  But I didn't, and even though I am now coping with a minor concussion vastly magnified by my chronically inflamed migraine brain, I wouldn't undo the decision to photograph the beads. It was a good decision. To pick up the beads after they spilled was also a good decision. That I didn't realize I was directly beneath the point of the handrail when I stood up is simply chance. Once I'm back on my feet, I will continue to take photographs of interesting and unexpectedly beautiful things, some of which must be carried down the stairs and possibly spill, and when they spill, I will pick them up. (Though I will be much more mindful of making sure there is nothing overhead before I stand!) In life, we must answer the summons to go to our friend Hamlet, who has been behaving strangely as of late.  We might be able to do him some good. We cannot assume we will be hanged.