Do you regret that tattoo?

You’ve probably thought this. You see a nice looking young lady or gentleman. You notice a tattoo on their arm, or shoulder, or neck, or other places and you think, “I bet down the road, when they get older, they’ll wish they had never gotten that tattoo.” OK, if you are under forty, you probably haven’t thought this, since 40 percent of Americans between the age of 26 and 40 now have a tattoo. But even some of that 40 percent are having second thoughts about their tattoos.

An article in the “News & Observer” by Josh Shaffer, from a few years ago, stated that 17 percent of the people who have tattoos now regret getting them. That means almost one out of five wishes they didn’t have that tattoo on their arm, shoulder, neck, or other places. But getting rid of a tattoo isn’t that easy. It may take several laser treatments to remove that name or design that, at one time, you thought would be “cool.” And the removal is even more painful than the original inking of the tattoo and can be quite expensive. Businesses are making good money helping people get rid of tattoos, something they now regret.

Do you regret getting that tattoo? Well, Pete Davidson does. Davidson, now 31, was a cast member on “Saturday Night Live” from a few years ago. He was featured in a sketch during the fiftieth anniversary special this past weekend. After leaving the show, Davidson found that Hollywood acting jobs were not that plentiful for someone with a lot of tattoos on their body. And Pete Davidson had a lot of tattoos.

So Davidson began the painful removal process. Recently, on the “Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon,” he described the ordeal of removing over 200 tattoos. (That’s right, over 200 tattoos!)

Describing the process, he told Fallon, “They’ve got to burn off a layer of your skin, and then it has to heal for, like, six to eight weeks. And you can’t get in the sunlight, and you’ve got to do it, like, 12 more times.” He stated that the removal hurts more than the actual pain of getting a tattoo.

Although it may be painful and expensive, tattoos are one thing that we may regret that can be eliminated. It is sad to say that there are probably other regrets in our lives that we would gladly pay a price or suffer some pain to eliminate. The problem is that we can’t.

It’s hard to recover from a foolish financial decision, or a lifetime of poor health habits. You may regret it or wish you had your time back, but it’s too late. There may have been poor relationship choices or a boneheaded career move. You may have thought you were doing the right thing at the time, or you may not have been thinking at all. In the end, it really doesn’t matter. It is what it is. What are you going to do?

Probably the first step is to realize your error and learn from it. Then, if possible, repair the damage. In other words, try to clean up the mess you made. It may be hard and painful, like a laser on a tattoo. Then, make sure you return to the correct path, which will help you avoid future regrets. Then, press on.

Paul could have looked back on his life with regret. The apostle who wrote much of the New Testament was once a persecutor of the early Christian church. Paul may have had regrets from those times, but he pressed on. Toward the end of his life, Paul wrote to the Philippian church, “One thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 3:13.14) Forgetting may not be that easy. Like looking at that unfortunate tattoo in the mirror every morning, you may have to face

the results of the thing you regret every day. But, I suppose the key is to keep pressing forward.

I’ve heard professional speakers talk about living a life without regrets. I’m not sure that’s possible. Just ask Pete Davidson, as he keeps pressing on, smelling his flesh burn, while he gets another tattoo removed.