But since then, I have had some experience with this subject he brought up and upon the early hours of the morning and the way I usually go about my thinking, am feeling rather inspired to write about it.
Regret.
A subject that is the core of some of the most popular quotes, YOLO song lyrics, and excessive parental advice. I have written about regret as is applies to other subjects I think about but I have never felt totally comfortable fully approaching it.
A hard subject to write about no doubt because everyone feels it, but no one wants to admit they have it or have felt it. We don't want to go through our lives thinking what if, but in my opinion and from my experience thusfar, its kind of inevitable to face these what if's occasionally and to wish you had made different choices from time to time. Do I believe in what if's, no, because I believe that what happens happens and it is silly to fantasize about another situation that is nonexistent. But I do often experience those concerns for having them and have experienced them myself in moments of the monumental, seemingly cataclysmic decisions that effect life significantly.
Being the usually obnoxiously optimistic, glass half full person that I am, I have began to accept that regret is part of the human condition and while you may not be able to control it in its entirety, its absolutely possible to control the way you reflect, understand and act on it. I have heard many people (more adults than teenagers) often advise me to do this or to do that so I may not find room for regret later. Make decisions now that will make life easier for you later." A mantra and decision making technique I believed would bring me security in life now and down the road without having to put myself out there too far and get shot down.
I have began to believe that this may have been what shaped my perspective for living life in such a way that I won't regret anything later. Since recently, I really believed that this was the best model to live by and most importantly, a way to get the most out of this 70-100 years we hope to get on this planet. But what I have also come to understand is in all circumstances and situations in which you will make a decision, you have the choice to approach it in a way where your mindset says "I'm going to make the best decision or outcome I can make for the time in which I am existing." A divergence from my model that promotes more of a "acting now" vs. "worrying about later."
This won't always mean making the smart choice, or the easy choice, or the logical choice but more that you are acknowledging what you want to do and agreeing to pursue it 100%. The effort that you put into choices you make should place you in an agreement with your own self that even if the choice you make doesn't provide the benefits you thought it might, or work out the way you thought it might, that you gave something you believed in at THE TIME your all and that is a far greater accomplishment than succeeding at something you were just doing because it was safe.
What I have found, is that if you are constantly living on the defensive (As I do) and constantly preparing for what could go wrong and routinely living to avoid conflict, you miss out on good things, lessons, and memories you might develop from grabbing life by the horns and taking the offensive. I wouldn't suggest that you live life completely on the offensive, as having a good offense matters just as much as a good defense, but what is life worth if it is just filled with a constant "OK" because you are simply avoiding the bad, and not embracing the good. Without the bad, there can't be great. And what I have found comical is that we live on this defensive because we are SCARED of doing something when later it turns into regretting the things we didn't do. Cliche, but they do tie together. When you get to be this age of 20 and pushing upward, from what I have observed and been through, you are going to realize not only do you HAVE nothing to regret if you live on the defensive but you have nothing to celebrate if you are constantly sitting back, protecting yourself from hurt, stress, and this vague interpretation of regret when sometimes in order to avoid those things, you have to be willing to go forward. You will live in a constant stream of doubting yourself and concern for making the wrong decision instead of just putting your damn foot down, doing what you care about, and really living.
As some of you may know, I made the tough decision to quit my 8 year career with track and field this last year. I bring this up not because I like talking about it or wish to make a dramatic proclamation about it, but it directly applies to this topic and part of my nightly reflection. I had put a lot and I mean a LOT of late night thinking, parental conversation and time into deciding how I was going to approach my specialty sport in which I once had Olympic dreams and was good, but undeniably one that I had fallen out of love with. Easily the hardest cross road I have ever been faced with. A crossroad I know each and everyone person has struggled with at some point in their life. Being good at something, but no longer being fond of it. Its even harder when there is history behind it all because much like everything, history builds foundation and its harder to start over the stronger that foundation gets.
Maybe its a relationship, a sport like mine, an old dream, a parents dream FOR you, an area of interest, anything. I can say confidently that everyone has been in a situation where they are faced with choosing to do what they love, and choosing to do what is easy for them. Its tough. Because here is the draw: Giving it up seems wasteful, but continuing on seems pointless when you are not passionate about it.
So what do you do? How are we expected to deal with this kind of emotional and psychological torture?
Unfortunately, I don't have that answer and telling you what to do would be insensitive and assuming of me.
But, I can tell you what I did.
At the time, facing this reality of dislike vs. ease seemed easier and less terrifying if I looked at the two scenarios on an equal level, staying and continuing running t because I was good, or taking the risk to quit, perhaps regretting it, and pursuing something I cared about. I asked myself over and over again which choice with running would I regret LESS 5 years, 10 years, 20 years down the road. I was faced with something much different than comfort, certainty and a solid answer when taking my own present desires out of context and trying to appease a future self whom I had not met and did not know. Instead, I realized that looking at regret from the defensive end, from an indifferent end, made me feel completely out of sync with myself. It made me feel insecure and it made me feel lost. The system I had used for decision making and regret avoidance had failed and it threw me. I had an epiphany that honestly, I had put myself in a position to be at the mercy of regret. I let regret dictate what I would do with MY time and MY life and that is something you want to avoid at all costs if you ever want to achieve a self confident happiness.
I realized that by approaching regret like it was something I could completely control and trying to make a choice simply because it might be an easier route for me down the road was not going to give me an answer to this decision that I felt strongly about, but one that would appease my situation and just avoid having to deal with regret.... for now. You just NEVER know. You are never going to know what you might regret because good AND bad can come from anything, it just depends how YOU choose to look at it.
This form of decision making I had relied on for so long revealed this lack of trust I had in myself that I never had seen before. I was not confident enough in my own situation and my passions to make a choice because I wanted to make it. Using regret is not an excuse to do something easier with your life or play the victim! Most importantly, I learned regret isn't always about making a foolish decision, its about making a decision you had no trust in. You have to accept that you will NEVER be able to make a choice (with exceptions of course) where you will 100% know how it will effect your future. The best thing you can do for yourself is to live a little on the offensive side so that when you do reach that point 5 years, 10 years, 20 years down the road, you are able to say at least you did everything you could instead of wishing you had done something DIFFERENT.
That's when I began to think about it from my own 19 year old self's point of view. I realized that if I gave up running I might regret it later, but there is an equal opportunity for regret if I continued to run and missed out on some of the things I wanted to partake in that I was passionate about.
I found that there was no right answer.
I could regret any choice I wanted to because any and every choice you make is going to have payoffs, but its going to have consequences as well. It all depends on your perspective and the amount of effort and trust you are willing to put into the choice you do make. Once you make a choice, if you promise yourself to not look back and go full throttle with your defensive and offensive side for the choice you make, you are GOING TO BE HAPPY. There is no way that a person doing something they love will regret making a choice that made it possible for them. That's just logical. That doesn't mean that you might occasionally wish you had taken another option, that is normal, but be as confident as you can be in your direction and believe in it for everything it is worth and can teach you.
And say you make a choice, and you are stuck with the consequences of it and unable to enjoy any of the payoffs, than you better work hard to get to the next choice where you can make a new decision. Its all about backs and fourths, and changing and evolving as person. Take every situation for whats its worth, goods and bads and either learn from it or be beaten by it. If you become in touch with what you care about and learn to make tough choices CONFIDENTLY, you will begin to see regret differently and it will begin to feel different to you. It will become something that no longer eats away at you, remaining in the back of your head as a could have, should have, would have, but merely as a part in your life where you gave it your all and it may or may not have worked out for the better. I PROMISE you that this will bring a peace to you when looking back, making it impossible to be bitter or upset about the decision. This is where I see the difference between regret and reflection. If you are looking at it completely from the defensive side, you are constantly living in a day to day prevention and protection that withholds you from making mistakes, learning, and using those lessons for a future.
The same way goes for the other side.
If you constantly live on the offensive, throwing caution to the wind at all times and closing your eyes and choosing whatever decision is heads for the coin toss, chances are you will experience some of the same side effects of regret when you realize that you should have approached life a little more conservatively, where you could have prevented certain issues or obstacles had you just opened your eyes and planned a little more.
The hardest thing to accept when it comes to regret is there isn't a calculated formula to curing you from it, no perfect game plan that prevents it and no easy way to deal with it once it sets in solidly. I wish I could give you some answer to it all, and maybe someone out there has it, but I think that almost brings an acceptance of it that makes it easier to get past and process. What I can tell you, is it all comes down to trusting yourself. I think that when I look at advice on regret, I don't necessarily think you should play it safe all the time and I dont think you should just do the craziest thing so you can have a good story for later, but what I believe in is that you have to give yourself credit. We are so hard on ourselves when "looking back at what we could have been" when in reality we have no idea what we will be or what we will wish we could have been.
Make a decision now, and make it confidently.
Make it for you and do everything in your power to make it a choice that even in the midst of it not working out, it still being something you are happy to have tried.
Trust yourself to make a good decision now, and go easy on yourself later.
Try to see everything in a brighter light, and eventually, the things that seemed dark, will fade.
You can't change the past, and you can't predict the future, so just do everything in your power to be happy now so later, you won't be able to regret anything if you know for a fact you were making choices that made you happy at the time.
Do the best you can for the time your in.
Developing a plan will help but when it comes to regret, its not necessarily the offensive side or the defensive side that will bring you a satisfaction with your life, all the goods and the bads of it, but being the coach of your own life. Making calls confidently, learning from wins and losses, trusting in your knowledge at that moment and having faith in your own offense and defense will bring you whatever constitutes a win for you, knowing you did your best even through a series of tough plays.
