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Which is worse, to have had and lost or to have never had?
As to have had; you fill in the blank. Perhaps it was love, friendship, wealth, fame or whatever you value. If you can, give a brief reason for your answer.
I suppose your life is a series of conscious or unconscious related events. If I didn't get married, I would never have gotten divorced. If I never got divorced, I probably would never have moved out of state to start a new life. If I never moved out of state, maybe I wouldn't have met other people and/or doubled my salary and/or traveled to 32 states. If I hadn't doubled my salary, maybe I'd still be working and not retired. If I hadn't retired, I probably wouldn't have discovered my latest hobby, photography. Etc.
So, I'm going to go with it's better to have had what you had if you are happy with your life right now. It would be better to have never had, if you think a second crapshoot of different interrelated events could have led to a better current life.
It is most definitely better to have never had it.
You don't know what you are missing and you don't have to long for what you may never had again.
I am sure a person born blind has a lot less anger about it than someone who became blind as an adult. (for instance)
Ah, here is the thought I was looking for. Thus, my answer is ....it depends on what it is that was either lost or never had. This particular saying was originally aimed at that most wonderful of human emotions, love. "Far better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all". However, applying this to something else, well, that changes everything. Relativity. The pain of loss, as is physical pain, is , you guessed it, relative. There is no absolute answer to the OP's question, not in my world anyway.
Looking back on my 60 plus years there are only a handful of things I did that I am sorry for. The things I really regret are the things that I did not do. Examples: Not learning how to play the piano when offered lessons at five; not going to Oahu with college sweetheart because I could not afford the airfare.
I dunno. If you never had it or truly knew it existed or what it entailed, you couldn't really miss it...
Couldn't agree more. It's far worse to have had something good and lost it than to never have had it at all.
I could be wrong, but I'll use this as an example. Take for instance children living in a peaceful, yet destitute, undeveloped third world nation. Many parts of Africa or South America will do. They seem very happy with their current life, living in mud huts, without electricity or running water, or proper healthcare. Yet, if any of those children were to be brought to America for any length of time and then sent home, their attitudes would drastically change about the condition of their surroundings. The truth is that most of them will never see America and will know nothing else in their lives, and they will remain content with the only thing they do know.
I dunno. If you never had it or truly knew it existed or what it entailed, you couldn't really miss it...
Not miss it, but if you see that other people have it or have had it and you didn't, then you know it exists but for some reason you didn't get to experience it.
People who have never gotten to experience what love feels like or what a good relationship is like, for example. You see others all around that have it, and you will always wonder what it would feel like. I am that way to some degree--I gave marriage a shot once and it failed, and despite all my attempts at fooling myself, I know I wasn't loved from the beginning and I still have no clue as to what it might feel like.
But I know someone else who is disabled, and she would have liked to be able to take the shot and fail as I did, and never even had the opportunity to do so.
And there are people who have fallen in and out of love 20 times to whom it seems as easy as breathing and as plentiful as air.
It is better to have and lose it than to never have it at all. Thats all life is, things coming and going from your life. If you are better off never having anything then couldn't it be said you are better off never being born? If you never existed you never had any of the pain, loss, and suffering that life entails at the cost of never having any of the good qualities life offers.
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Thus, my answer is ....it depends on what it is that was either lost or never had. This particular saying was originally aimed at that most wonderful of human emotions, love. "Far better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all". However, applying this to something else, well, that changes everything. Relativity. The pain of loss, as is physical pain, is , you guessed it, relative. There is no absolute answer to the OP's question, not in my world anyway.
