I wrote about this topic earlier here, here, and here. Though, this post is about how our choices can redeem us from the probable drama.
- Save too much and you’ll feel you shouldn’t have been a miser. Spend too much and you’ll wish you weren’t irresponsible.
- Do drugs, smoke, and drink and you’ll recall how you wasted your youth. Don’t, and a voice within will wish you weren’t so careful.
- Treat relationships casually and you’ll wish you were wiser. Be too wise, commit, and you’ll think you shouldn’t have made haste.
We’re used to rethinking everything
Eat healthy or don’t.
Bunk your college or don’t.
Face your life the way it is or cut corners.
No matter what you do, the what-if … part never goes out of the equation. We don’t stop imagining how our life could have been if we had lived differently or made different choices.
Yet, how much of that make sense?
Regrets, at their core, are irrational possibilities that we justify to ourselves. It’s like getting sad thinking that there was a brighter side to life that you couldn’t reach.
Was there a brighter side? Nobody knows.
We often regret things that never happened (but which we hope would’ve happened) But since we can’t return to the past – we lament being where we are. We curse our present.
The fairness of life
Despite all these confusions, we’re given our share of choices in life. So, it’s up to us to decide which cards to pick and what to move on with.
We do tons of things.
But overall, if we’re proud of the sum total of our decisions and choices, if we’ve listened to our hearts, then we’re more accepting of what we did.
We have lesser regrets when we’re full of stuff we love. And even if we happen to carry some regrets in our hearts, that’s fine, too. It’s an essential part of being human.