Dealing with Inevitable Regret

There are days when regret grabs me by the throat and chokes the stuffing out of me. Once I catch my breath I stare into the quiet and sigh. I remember when I was 18 and my father said, "I don't want you to have any regrets." A nice sentiment, but completely impractical. I wish someone had given me guidance instead on how to deal with regret. But here I stand with 20 years of experience since that moment and a mountain of regret. Is a regret free life really possible?

Hindsight is 20/20, but if we could make every decision with full knowledge of the past and the future would we still choose wisely? It depends on the decision of course and our mentality at the given moment. Study any disgraced politician who has been tarnished by scandal. They might say they wish they could go back in time and undo the damage, but when faced with the beautiful woman and her ample cleavage, would they make the right choice? Sometimes we are simply overwhelmed by temptation and caught in the snare. This is the human condition. We are all imperfect creatures.

So what can we do about it? Do we sit and pout? Do we cry and throw a pity party and wallow in our misery? Well, we can. But if we choose that option we will never escape our misery. I have learned that facing my mistakes is the better option. When I take that path I find peace of mind even if I will forever live with the consequences of my actions. Besides, what better way is there to learn than to fail?

I am weak-willed. When faced with a challenge I inevitably choose the easiest course of action. To that end I find myself facing middle age far from where I hoped to be in life. Lately I find myself moping inwardly and wishing I had made better choices earlier in my life. I wish I had a college degree. I wish I had taken better care of my body. I wish, I wish, I wish. As my mother used to say, "If wishes were horses we'd all be riders." The decisions I made in my late teens and early twenties resound through my daily life. Those decisions didn't seem to matter then, but they sure matter now. And I can't change them.

So what do I do about it?

I think I start by forgiving myself. I was at a different place in my journey then. I need to stop holding a grudge. Hating myself is not productive. I need to determine what I can do today to live my life the way I want to live it. And then I need to stop concentrating on my failures and focus on the things I'm most proud of. These are big challenges but the longer I put them off, the more I prolong my suffering.

I grieve my past but I cherish my future. Even if I only have today, today is what I make of it. Why not go out and make it wonderful?

Even if today, wonderful is simply holding my head high and refusing to cry over past decisions.

Today a woman at work who recently found out she was pregnant confided in me that at her first ultrasound they found a very large mass on her ovary that is not a simple cyst and has the very real possibility of ending her life. She is 3 years younger than me. Suddenly my problems don't seem like real problems at all.