Life's full of opportunities, and sometimes we miss a couple. But no matter how much it might seem like a loss, it's best not to dwell in regret. Regret is a kind of beating-yourself-up which people do when they think they've made a poor decision or been at the wrong place at the wrong time or whatever. The thing about regret is, there's really no telling what would have happened if a different decision had been made, or a lost opportunity taken.
We can get some idea of what is lost when an opportunity is missed, but it's impossible to know for sure. And with as much random chance as is involved in our lives, it's very difficult to say with absolute confidence that anything would be better if some different choice had been made.
Examples are easy to come up with. Maybe it's tempting to feel regret for not trying to go out with a certain person, before he/she got snatched up by someone else. But they could easily turn out to be a terrible partner, and you just didn't know it. Or, you could have gone on a date with them, and gotten food poisoning. Or been hit by a truck while driving to their house.
With me, I had a great opportunity when I was joining the Air Force. I scored really well on the ASVAB and could pretty much pick whatever job I wanted. The counselors made two suggestions: contractor or linguist. Obviously, looking back now, it's easy for me to wish I'd done linguistics. Back then, my passion for languages hadn't been sparked yet, and I brushed the suggestion aside without a second thought.
Instead of doing linguistics or contracting, I chose weather forecasting. I was overqualified for that career, according to the ASVAB, yet something about it seemed to call out to me. Once I got through almost a year of training, and got on the job, I quickly became miserable with it. It seemed like a cut-and-dry example of a Bad Choice. One I would've had to live with for six years, the length of my original signing contract. Fortunately, after I learned some valuable life lessons from that job, I was able to get out early, thanks to the U.S. Congress deciding the Air Force was overmanned.
I lost out on a golden opportunity to study languages. The Defense Language Institute, where military linguists are trained, is one of the best places to learn languages in the world. It would've been a sweet job-- or so it seems on the surface of things. Fact is, though, there's no way for me to know. I might have been even more miserable there. And if I had to make a career out of language-learning, I might never have realized how awesome language-learning is.
THE VAGUENESS OF CAUSE AND EFFECT
The Butterfly Effect states that unimportant-seeming actions can have big consequences. It's named after the most famous example. A butterfly flaps its wings, which alters the air around it. The effect ripples out, effecting more and more things, and eventually causes a hurricane. The point is that there's no way anyone could comprehend, much less predict, the exact way that the butterfly's wings flapping caused the hurricane.
Think back to some life-changing opportunity you passed up. If you'd taken it, there's no telling where you'd be now. It could be better, it could be worse, it could have caused a hurricane and wiped out a few small countries. You could be absolutely miserable if you'd taken that "opportunity". It's impossible to know for certain. So, don't beat yourself up about it, and just accept the choice you did make.
LAUGHING IN THE FACE OF MISFORTUNE
Today I was eating a sandwich rather clumsily, and some of the ingredients fell out. Rather than get upset about it, I chuckled saying, "Well that was inevitable!" Of course since I was eating the sandwich clumsily, I should've seen something like that coming. Like a clown carefully balancing a pie halfway onto the top of the ladder, and then getting it all over his face, the accident was inevitable and funny, and I was able to get a laugh from it, rather than have it spoil my mood.
The sandwich is a trivial example, but it's illustrative of how we can more generally laugh at our misfortunes. Say for example, you were in love with someone but couldn't ever get up the courage to go talk to them. Oh the tragedy, as you watch them across the room, burning with desire... and yet, from an outside perspective, how silly! If you don't act, of course a relationship will never blossom. It's like watching a clown carefully setting himself up to get a pie in the face.
It might be tough, but it's possible to get a little humor from whatever misfortunes come our way. And that's a much better place to deal with them, than from a place of regret.
Take relationship drama, for example. People laugh at how over-the-top the drama is in soap operas. If there's drama in your relationship, just think of it as your very own corny Spanish soap opera. Maybe you can ever do that thing where you and your partner take turns slapping eachother on the fact and then it turns into passionate kissing. Drama is the spice of life. It's certainly nothing to feel regret over.
NONE OF THIS NONSENSE WILL MATTER IN A HUNDRED YEARS
A hundred years from now, I'll be dead, you'll be dead, and almost everyone we know will be dead. Give it two hundred years and everyone we ever interacted with will be dead. So why bother crying tears of regret? We only live once, and we've got to enjoy our lives.
WHAT GOOD IS A STORY WITH NO DILEMMA?
Take any novel and remove all the conflict and dilemmas. It'll probably become pretty boring. Suddenly Star Wars is a tale of some Jedi peacefully running the Empire with no interference from the dark Jedi. Indiana Jones leads some uneventful archaeological digs with the helpful cooperation of the natives. Batman patrols Gotham City helping old ladies cross the street.
If you'd made all the right decisions in life- as if that were possible- and everything went perfectly for you all the time, think how boring that would get! Lead a fun life, be a light to people around you, and never regret anything, because everything that's happened is all part of the bigger story of your life.
Here are some other articles I wrote, and I have no regret about writing them!
Getting Motivated To Go Lift Weights
The Air Force Core Values
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: A Man of Courage, Passion, and Freedom
We can get some idea of what is lost when an opportunity is missed, but it's impossible to know for sure. And with as much random chance as is involved in our lives, it's very difficult to say with absolute confidence that anything would be better if some different choice had been made.
Examples are easy to come up with. Maybe it's tempting to feel regret for not trying to go out with a certain person, before he/she got snatched up by someone else. But they could easily turn out to be a terrible partner, and you just didn't know it. Or, you could have gone on a date with them, and gotten food poisoning. Or been hit by a truck while driving to their house.
With me, I had a great opportunity when I was joining the Air Force. I scored really well on the ASVAB and could pretty much pick whatever job I wanted. The counselors made two suggestions: contractor or linguist. Obviously, looking back now, it's easy for me to wish I'd done linguistics. Back then, my passion for languages hadn't been sparked yet, and I brushed the suggestion aside without a second thought.
Instead of doing linguistics or contracting, I chose weather forecasting. I was overqualified for that career, according to the ASVAB, yet something about it seemed to call out to me. Once I got through almost a year of training, and got on the job, I quickly became miserable with it. It seemed like a cut-and-dry example of a Bad Choice. One I would've had to live with for six years, the length of my original signing contract. Fortunately, after I learned some valuable life lessons from that job, I was able to get out early, thanks to the U.S. Congress deciding the Air Force was overmanned.
I lost out on a golden opportunity to study languages. The Defense Language Institute, where military linguists are trained, is one of the best places to learn languages in the world. It would've been a sweet job-- or so it seems on the surface of things. Fact is, though, there's no way for me to know. I might have been even more miserable there. And if I had to make a career out of language-learning, I might never have realized how awesome language-learning is.
THE VAGUENESS OF CAUSE AND EFFECT
The Butterfly Effect states that unimportant-seeming actions can have big consequences. It's named after the most famous example. A butterfly flaps its wings, which alters the air around it. The effect ripples out, effecting more and more things, and eventually causes a hurricane. The point is that there's no way anyone could comprehend, much less predict, the exact way that the butterfly's wings flapping caused the hurricane.
Think back to some life-changing opportunity you passed up. If you'd taken it, there's no telling where you'd be now. It could be better, it could be worse, it could have caused a hurricane and wiped out a few small countries. You could be absolutely miserable if you'd taken that "opportunity". It's impossible to know for certain. So, don't beat yourself up about it, and just accept the choice you did make.
LAUGHING IN THE FACE OF MISFORTUNE
Today I was eating a sandwich rather clumsily, and some of the ingredients fell out. Rather than get upset about it, I chuckled saying, "Well that was inevitable!" Of course since I was eating the sandwich clumsily, I should've seen something like that coming. Like a clown carefully balancing a pie halfway onto the top of the ladder, and then getting it all over his face, the accident was inevitable and funny, and I was able to get a laugh from it, rather than have it spoil my mood.
The sandwich is a trivial example, but it's illustrative of how we can more generally laugh at our misfortunes. Say for example, you were in love with someone but couldn't ever get up the courage to go talk to them. Oh the tragedy, as you watch them across the room, burning with desire... and yet, from an outside perspective, how silly! If you don't act, of course a relationship will never blossom. It's like watching a clown carefully setting himself up to get a pie in the face.
It might be tough, but it's possible to get a little humor from whatever misfortunes come our way. And that's a much better place to deal with them, than from a place of regret.
Take relationship drama, for example. People laugh at how over-the-top the drama is in soap operas. If there's drama in your relationship, just think of it as your very own corny Spanish soap opera. Maybe you can ever do that thing where you and your partner take turns slapping eachother on the fact and then it turns into passionate kissing. Drama is the spice of life. It's certainly nothing to feel regret over.
NONE OF THIS NONSENSE WILL MATTER IN A HUNDRED YEARS
A hundred years from now, I'll be dead, you'll be dead, and almost everyone we know will be dead. Give it two hundred years and everyone we ever interacted with will be dead. So why bother crying tears of regret? We only live once, and we've got to enjoy our lives.
WHAT GOOD IS A STORY WITH NO DILEMMA?
Take any novel and remove all the conflict and dilemmas. It'll probably become pretty boring. Suddenly Star Wars is a tale of some Jedi peacefully running the Empire with no interference from the dark Jedi. Indiana Jones leads some uneventful archaeological digs with the helpful cooperation of the natives. Batman patrols Gotham City helping old ladies cross the street.
If you'd made all the right decisions in life- as if that were possible- and everything went perfectly for you all the time, think how boring that would get! Lead a fun life, be a light to people around you, and never regret anything, because everything that's happened is all part of the bigger story of your life.
Here are some other articles I wrote, and I have no regret about writing them!
Getting Motivated To Go Lift Weights
The Air Force Core Values
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: A Man of Courage, Passion, and Freedom
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment