*The guilt is there, but I’m ready to forgive myself.*

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**Shingeki no Kyojin** or **Attack on Titan** is the first ever anime series that I watched. I’m not sure how I first discovered it, but I vaguely remember watching the interview of Hajime Isayama, the mangaka himself for the first time which made me want to check his works. I know many people (especially on social media) adore this anime, in fact they will never stop talking about how good it is. It has been almost 2 years since the anime ended, but I know I’m not the only one who feels like I will always remember it because this anime is very impactful in its own way.

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**Levi Ackerman**, as we know is the humanity’s strongest soldier who steals the show. But despite the fact that no one can beat his high power skills, I’m pretty sure many people also learn a lot from his character development. We can go on and on about him, but for me, his OVA called ***“A Choice with No Regrets”*** is gave me an important mentality that I can learn and apply in real life from this amazing character.

The OVA tells about Levi’s backstory as a criminal in the Underground City with his friends, Isabel and Furlan, and how they were recruited into the Survey Corps. Long story short, after they joined, Levi initially tried to prevent Isabel and Furlan from participating in the scouting mission to protect them, but they convinced him to let them join. Levi initiated plans for Isabel and Furlan to stay behind during the scouting mission, however, resulted in the deaths of two of them.

With that being said, he feels responsible for their deaths. Levi had to endure the feelings of guilt and regret. In moments like these, as we all probably experience, there’s the pain of what-ifs. What if we didn’t taken that risk, what if we didn’t made that decision, what if we had done something completely different. But the question remains, *would the end result have been different from what already happened?*

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Sometimes I find myself imagine ideal scenarios as if they would have produced different outcomes, has anyone relate to that? But the fact is, we can never know how the exact outcomes are. Even if we did something different, there’s no guarantee that the “present moment” will get any better, right? Because we can also easily take different actions and spin them into worst case scenarios too. I judge my decisions based on the results I've already gotten, as if I knew it beforehand.


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***Then there’s a following question of why do we feeling regret when we already know we can’t change the past?***

I read somewhere that regret, just like any other emotions, has a function for survival. Its our brain's way of telling us to take another look at our choice so we can learn to make better decisions in the future. [This article]( https://www.verywellmind.com/how-to-cope-with-regret-5218665#:~:text=The%20reason%20why%20regret%20feels%20so%20awful,something%20good%20happen%20or%20avoided%20something%20terrible.&text=It%20is%20about%20reframing%20that%20regret%20and,opportunity%20that%20helps%20build%20resilience%20and%20wisdom.) says: *regret can serve an important function and it can drive us to overcome past mistakes or take action to correct them.* Not to feeling regret is one of the hardest things to do because the guilt is there. But I think it’s always be as important to accept it, embrace it, and forgive it all.

From Levi Ackerman character development, I learn how to forgive my self and give it another try to move forward. Erwin Smith, the commander of the Survey Corps also said something like *"If you begin to regret, you'll dull your future decisions and let others make your choices for you. All that's left for you then is to die. Nobody can foretell the outcome. Each decision you make holds meaning only by affecting your next decision."* which emphasizes the importance of not dwelling on past choices but use it as an experience and even builds vigilance to not repeat the mistakes in the future.

I think this is an important mentality to have, which allows us to view regret in a more positive way rather than getting caught up in it. What do you think? Do you have other perspective about Levi Ackerman character development? Please let me know because it will be very interesting to read.

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Anyway, it’s my first time writing in this community so thankyou so much for reading :) Have a great day, hivers!


Source of pics: 
1. https://id.pinterest.com/pin/11470174043925021/ 
2. https://id.pinterest.com/pin/60446819992701510/