This I Believe

Regrets…Have none. They’re the gateway to the past, never to the present. So, make mistakes, revel in them; but never allow them to be regrets. Live long, free, and as happy as possible, but have no regrets.

Regrets are nothing more than time wasted on refusing life’s lessons. Mistakes are what give us the potential to go beyond great. They empower us to have empathy and greater wherewithal in our decision making. Take delight in mistakes. Take delight in knowing you’ve earned becoming a better person from them. Do not snuggle them tightly and call them regrets. Do not limit your personal growth for intangible repentance. Do not do as I have done.

I once loved an idea. I loved that idea so much that I would’ve done anything to make it reality. I wanted to attend a university; to be a part of the city it was in and the culture it promoted. I wanted to walk the city streets wearing shirts that proudly displayed the school’s mascot. I wanted to call Pittsburgh home. I wanted to spend the next four years of my life being a Panther at the University of Pittsburgh.

For two years, whenever I thought of that idea I loved so much, I would mumble to myself that love is a losing game. I was accepted to the University of Pittsburgh along with twenty other schools. Opening that acceptance letter would be one of the happiest moments in that decade of my life. I was going to hang the letter on my bedroom ceiling so that I could see it every morning and have a reason to get up.

Before I could, I saw my scholarship packet. It was the least amount of money I had received from any school. The idea and my happiness died. I didn’t take a chance on myself by taking out extravagant loans or asking my parents for help. I didn’t try as hard as I could’ve to get alternative funding. I went to a different university and hated it for the first two years because I was consumed by regret.

I hated my first two years of undergrad at the University of Dayton. I hated the city for being so small and lacking the bridges offered in Pittsburgh. I knew I had made the mistake of not trying hard enough, so I didn’t see what was in front of me. I couldn’t enjoy anything. I was still reveling in regret. I kept thinking of what I could’ve done, only to find that I was exactly where I needed to be.

I didn’t get to be a Panther. I didn’t get to live in Pittsburgh. I did find my best friends. I did find what I’d like to do with my life. What I didn’t get pales in comparison to what I found. I only wish I hadn’t wasted my time on regret instead of enjoying life.

Mistakes…Do make many. As for regrets, have none.

Last Tuesday morning I stared across the table at a woman with severe scars lining her otherwise gentle face. Her raging husband carved those scars and sliced off her ear when she told him she wanted a divorce.

I’m a member of the Rhode Island Parole Board. Month after month — 13 years worth of months — I’ve met with criminals and victims. Immediately before my colleagues and I conduct parole hearings for the criminals, we meet with their victims if they wish to tell us their stories.

Every time I walk into those hearing rooms I retest my belief in justice. I do my best to balance my concern for public safety and my faith that some offenders truly have the ability to redeem themselves. And I can’t ignore my wish to punish those criminals who willfully ruined another person’s life.

On hearing days, nearly always, the victims plead with us to keep the prisoner behind bars. All morning long I hear their gut-wrenching stories of murder, rape, child molestation, armed robbery, and domestic violence.

The victims return to their lives — which are often in shambles — and hours later I find myself face to face with the perpetrators. I settle in to hear what the prisoners have to say. Often their stories are filled with regret, with hope… and lots of promises.

These back-to-back encounters force me to confront what I really believe about people’s fundamental rights. I’m proud to be part of a system like ours — as imperfect as it is. The system does most of its work in the open and takes seriously the rights of both victims and the accused.

But the truth is, I struggle to balance these clanging, colliding rights. Only an hour after meeting with the woman with jagged scars on her face, I met with her offender. In his khaki inmate uniform, this monster explained with impressive insight and remorse how he had mishandled his failing marriage. The inmate showed me, with heartfelt words, the fruits of his hard emotional labor while in prison — what he had learned in treatment programs and from his own soul-searching. All of a sudden, he didn’t seem quite so monstrous.

So, how do I administer justice? I believe that justice can’t be shaped by simplistic formulas. Rather, justice happens when real human beings sort through a jumble of laws, rules, conflicting stories, and plain old instinct.

Sitting there in front of me that morning was what justice is all about. The victim heaved and sobbed, fearing the prisoner’s release. But both of us knew that the inmate would walk out of that prison some day — after all, the judge did not impose a life sentence. The question I had to answer was whether he would walk out the front gate on my watch.

Administering justice is not theoretical. There are real consequences every time I answer the question: What do I believe?