Is regret a good thing?

Well, is it?

I regret a lot of things in my 24 years. Does that mean I’ve lived a bad life? Does it mean I act before I think? Does it mean that nostalgia is warping my view of my past, giving me the false belief that things used to be better?

I look back and I can pick three incidents (within the last 6 years) that I would change, if I could. I won’t bore you with the details…

To me, these incidents seem like huge mistakes; I feel like they drastically changed the course of my life for the worse. At the time, I didn’t feel that way at all – I felt the very opposite; I felt as if the changes and actions I was effecting were going to benefit me.
Is it that I should not of effected these changes, or is it that these changes were just three that didn’t work out for me out of possibly hundreds that went well, therefore they stick around in my mind? I think probably the latter.

“Learn from your mistakes”

A great aphorism, but is it true? Is a mistake really a mistake if you are sure of the decision at the time you make it? Should you regret anything if at one time, it was exactly what you wanted?

Would I still be the person I am today if not for these three changes? Probably not. If not for the three changes though, I would never of met some of my best friends. If the first of these three “regrets” had not happened, then the other two would never of been given the chance to occur.

Look into the future as best you can before making big decisions, what seems like a great idea can turn out disastrous…

Sometimes however – it may just be better to jump.

Stefan