Lost opportunities & regret

A wise man once told me, we don’t regret the things we do, we regret the things we don’t do.

This is so true.  Think back on your life and your regrets. Most, if not all of them, have to do with lost opportunities.  I try to live my life without regret. I don’t always succeed and I do have a few regrets in my life, as I think we all do. So it’s probably better to say I try to minimize my regrets.

The problem we all have is how to not dwell on the past and all those lost opportunities.  How do we continue living in the present and moving forward despite the fact we have regrets?  As with everything, I take a reality based approach. I accept the regret. I missed an opportunity. I can’t go back in time. No amount of wishful thinking will make that happen. And really – even if I could – would I really want to?

I am now 50 years old. I have a lot of paths I didn’t take that I occasionally wonder about.  What I do know is that at the moment, I like where I am. All those “lost opportunities” brought me to my present. If I had taken that job in Japan, I would have never met my husband or had my son for instance.

The reality is that all our choices have costs associated with them. We chose one thing and not another. All the time. Even when the choice is what we are going to eat for dinner. Or are we going to wash our hands after using the bathroom. We make big choices and little choices all the time. Every choice you make negates a different choice. Sometimes you can go back and change your mind and sometimes you can’t. But this is the reality we find ourselves in. Our choices have consequences. At the end of the day, the best that any of us can do is try to make choices that will maximize the good and minimize the harm. And we won’t always succeed.

I find that doing the best I can to make good decisions helps free me of the guilt that comes with the opportunities I have lost through those choices. Because that’s what our grief about lost opportunities is. Guilt. Maybe if we had made a different choice things would be different. Maybe they would and maybe they wouldn't. The reality is we have no real way of knowing.

To help me assuage my guilt I rely on a quote.  “All I can ever do at any time is what I think is right.”  I don’t need to feel guilt for doing what I thought at the time was the right thing to do.

I hope this helps.  If you want to learn more about how to make good life decisions - check out my online course - Planning for Personal Success - https://humanistlearning.com/planforpersonalsuccess/

Overcoming regret

Regret is a double edged sword.

On the one hand it feels bad. On the other, it spurs us to action.  It turns out that the things we regret most are actually the things we have the most power to change.

According to research – summarized by Barking Up the Wrong Tree - http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2014/05/overcome-regret/ - the things we regret most are, not getting an education, our career choices, lost romances, parenting, self-improvement and not taking enough time for leisure.

You know what is great about this list?  They are all fixable.

Maybe you didn’t get the education you wanted. So, make an effort now, to get more education. There are online courses you can take from major universities Maybe you made some bad career choices in the past. Well, muster up the courage and make a change. Now.

I’m not sure there is much you can do about lost romances, but you can certainly learn to parent better.  And self-improvement?  That’s a lifelong endeavor for a Humanist.

For me – the most important thing is leisure. I am really bad at it.  I love what I do. I love writing and thinking and I literally have to schedule down time to be with my family or I would spend my life thinking things and writing them down.  But I know it’s important to keep me sane and happy and I don’t want to miss my son’s childhood. So I schedule time and stick to it.

The best bit of advice I ever got was that we don’t regret the things we do, we regret the things we don’t do. If you are living with regret, there is a cure. Go do that thing you regret not doing.  You don’t have to accept the status quo if you aren’t happy with it.  With the exception of failed romances.  I feel pretty strongly that if they failed, there’s a reason they failed and those are best left alone.  But everything else, go for it.

What do you regret the most and what are you going to do to fix it?