My major regret?

When I ask myself or when someone asks me that question, I generally answer: “I’ve no regret whatsoever”, which, let’s face it, isn’t totally true. Still, I won’t get about what I regret at this point, as I prefer to minimize it. 

This said, last Sunday, as we were walking by the Mormon Church, my heart went for all these people that were spoiling their free time worshiping a man-made, highly doubtful and irrational deity. I was thinking they’d benefit more from going mountain-biking, fishing, golfing or skiing in winter. 

Then, my thoughts shifted to my life and that’s when I realized all the skiing and other fun I missed because of my church attendance while I was a kid. How much better a skier would I have been in my youth had it not been for my church attendance, with the promise of perhaps having made the French ski team and not having to perform my boring 16 month of compulsory military service, etc, etc. 

Right, my Catholic upbringing was a royal waste of my precious time and I do regret that I was forced by my parents, my local culture and tradition to have to attend catechism, go to church and serve as an altar boy as much as I have, do my confirmation, communion and the like instead of going skiing or roaming the mountain by foot in the off season! 

Do I mention all the fear that my religious experience brought to me and all the guilt it let seep into my mind, screwing up most of my life, as it’s only now, at the end of my life, that I begin to see things more clearly. Yes, a tragic waste of time and a major regret of mine!