My Life's Regrets

Last week I read this post, about Sarah Brown’s life’s regrets. She stipulated that she narrowed it down to the things that she hadn’t done, rather than any bad decisions she’d made, on the assumption that at the end of your life, you’ll regret all the opportunities you let pass you by rather than the things you did follow through on. She says, “If you ignore this rule, this game quickly deteriorates into My Life’s Bad Romantic Decisions, or Why Did I Ever Say/Do/Ingest That,” and who wants to read that? Besides, I think she’s right when she says that even the bad things that happened to you have contributed to the person you are today.

So my point is that this entry is not as depressing as it seems. It’s more of a taking stock, and reminding myself that it’s not too late to do some of these, and to take advantage of the things I haven’t been doing that I still can.

So without further ado, here are my regrets:

-not studying for a semester in Europe

-not learning Spanish for real rather than just the colors and food items

--not keeping in touch with one of my best friends from high school

-not being involved at all in campus activities = very little fun in college

-being paralyzingly shy in unfamiliar situations as a teenager

-avoiding taking risks, since that might mean failure and rejection

-not writing more before I had kids (I can’t believe I thought I didn’t have time)

-taking so long to realize I needed help for my anxiety disorder

Here are some things I have never regretted:

-all the extra sleep I've ever gotten

-eating good chocolate

-spending Alone Time with my husband (not just doing that, but…yeah)

-reading instead of watching TV

-going to therapy

-making up after a fight

-praying

-snuggling with my babies

If you want to tell me about your regrets, I’d be interested to hear them. Try it, it really gives you perspective on what you should focus on today!