Regrets

 Suppose you were in a party where you meet the 3 people; one in the teens, one in the twenties and one in the thirties. You are now fifty plus and those three people are the younger version of yourself. They all tell you about some dilemma they are in and ask for your advice to take a decision. As they are your younger self so you know what decision you took and they will take and later regret it. We all wish if we had an opportunity to correct our decisions which turned out to be wrong.

Regret is something which we all feel in various degrees. As we get older our coffer of regrets increase. Most of our regrets are from these three age groups as these are the formative years our life and the decision we take in those years affect our financial and personal future situations. When we are at a cross road and it is time to decide a course of action we are more concerned about its immediate ramifications rather than the long term ramifications.

When I sit with my school friends over a drink sometimes I think about how they are so better off than me financially and also leading a happy family life. Where as though I have a happy family life but I am not as financially sound as them. Then I think that when in my teens my parents used to say to study hard, I neglected it. And now I think if I had heeded them I would have been better off now.  Regret is a strong emotion and can lead to self hatred and self loathing and can lead to depression.

Most of our regrets either relate to career and financial decisions or relating to relationship and have emotional baggage.

Some regrets have a short term effect and some have a long term, we get over some easily and some we find it difficult to get over. Some regrets are our own doing and some are forced on us by circumstances. Whatever be the cause the effect is always felt by us. One theory suggests that our actions which led to regret later on have a short term effect, and our inactions which led to regret have a long term effect on us. It seems quite logical. When we need to take a decision and we take one and it turns out to be wrong then we find solace in the fact that at least we took a decision based on the circumstances but it turned out to be wrong. No one intentionally takes a wrong decision. When we fail to take decision our inaction causes greater regret as we think that we had the opportunity to take a decision but it was our weakness or fault to not able to take a decision.

In our life decisions are our constant companion on a daily basis and most of the routine ones are taken quite unconsciously. But we also have those times when we require taking decisions which will be a major turning point of our life. These times comes within the first 30 to 35 years of our life mostly. Due to the effect of the young age we often underestimate the ramifications of our decision or indecisions. Due to our young age we sometimes become whimsical in taking decisions or we think that we will be able to correct it in future. But life often doesn’t give the opportunity to correct it again.

It is not always easy to get over regrets which had a decisive effect in our lives and its hangover can be pretty severe. It is not easy to just ignore them but what is required is to come in terms with them with an acceptance that whatever I did or did not was my doing which I thought best at that moment and I will have to live with it. Accepting it, forgiving oneself, not to blame others about it seems to be the only way out of it. Seldom does life give a second chance.