Regrets!!
A few days back I met a friend to have drinks at a happy hour. We were sitting at the patio, the view was spectacular, music was hip, and our drinks were just right to help us unwind after a full week of work! Overall, it was a delightful evening.
Even though we were drinking to unwind, we somehow started talking about life and work. We both agreed that to be happy, it’s crucial to feel passionate about your work, after all, we spend most of the day at work or getting ready for work. If maintaining a good work-life balance is essential, it’s also imperative to feel enthusiastic about your work.
My friend then gulped a big sip from his drink, stared at the empty glass in a dramatic pensive mode without saying much. After a good several minutes of complete silence, he revealed that a few years back, he turned down an offer from a big tech giant, and he still regrets it! “It’s okay to have some regrets in life!” I replied to comfort him and to lighten up the tone of the evening again, but he continued that it’s not the only regret he has in life.
That got me thinking, why we humans live a life full of regrets? Why so many times we wish we would’ve done something because we regret not doing it? Why we keep regrets so close to our hearts that we start talking about them at the very first chance we get! Regrets of not acting upon an opportunity at work or in life, regrets of not making that investments which later on looked super lucrative, regrets of not asking your crush out when you had a chance and for that matter saying yes to go out with your ex again! The regret of not taking enough risks in your early 20s, playing it too safe when you had nothing to lose!
But isn’t it true that when we were making those decisions, we thought we were making the right decisions? Most of us (most of the time), assess the pros and cons, right and wrong for everything before actually doing it, so why do we regret the result that comes from it? If our well thought out decision-making process leads us to a happy outcome, we feel so proud, so lucky that we decided it like that. But if the same process leads to an unhappy consequence, why do we feel disappointment? We have somehow conditioned our brains to feel happy or feel remorse based on the outcome, something which is not at all is in our control!
The decisions we make, define the path we take in our lives. Isn’t it beautiful that we carve our road by exercising our power of thinking and making a decision? That path makes us who we are, makes us the unique person we are!
I know it’s easier said than done, but shouldn’t we appreciate that we are not living a life similar to Benjamin Button, where we are beginning with the final product, and traversing a well-written path backward just to die as a child with no regrets!
Our sorrows, joys, happiness, the feeling of success and failures make us this extraordinary person we all are!
~~ Poornima
