Minimizing regret is a noble, multi-stage game. First, you must identify potential regrets before making the decisions that’ll lock them in. Next, you must figure out how to avoid them, or if you can’t, estimate how much you’ll regret taking certain paths over others.
Finally, to prevent regret from leading to ruin, aka late-stage bitterness in life, you must do your best to feel out the disappointments that would never stop bleeding, and if you find one, nix it at any and all cost. Otherwise, it’ll become a slow-drip poison seeping in until the end – and if you want to look back at life feeling proud and content, you absolutely can’t have any of those.
This is, of course, an impossible game to win, let alone with a perfect score. Much tallying and estimating and going back in forth will happen in your head, and yet sometimes, you’ll have to flip a coin or go with your gut regardless. Some shots you can only take in the moment, and your test scores might need a while to arrive.
Still, “Which regrets would hurt forever?” is a helpful question, if only for the few times in life when the answer will be obvious. Those answers will inevitably lead to hard choices, but at least your direction will be clear.
No one gets through life without scars and scratches, but if we can prevent a terminal diagnosis before it happens, we must accept our grave responsibility: Swallowing the bitter pill may spoil our appetite for now, but it’ll set our stomach straight in time for dessert.
Your email friend,
-Nik
I once came upon a tree that lives on the border of Wisconsin and Illinois. There is a sign attached to it, with two arrows just like the one in your picture here. The interesting part is that half of the tree (the IL half) was completely dead, and the other half (the WI half) was lush and green and flourishing.
I stopped and got out of the car and took a picture. I contemplated for a minute what it must be like to be that tree, and what might cause such a phenomenon. I hugged the tree and thanked her for her wisdom.
Then I got back in the car and drove into Wisconsin. As I did so I realized I always have a choice in which direction I move forward.
A few years later I came across that same intersection with that same tree. It was about the same time of year. I stopped, got out, hugged the tree in greeting and thanked her again. I got back in and drove in the direction of Illinois.
Regrets are there. We can choose to visit them and go I. The direction of them, or not. Sometimes it’s a good idea to give myself the reminder.
Now I think I have to save this comment and make it a post someday, with the picture of the tree.
Powerful words, Nik. Your writing captures the delicate balance between strategy and instinct.
I've often found that my gut, a personal strategy, leads to tough decisions. I would say my gut has been my compass. It guides me when overthinking clouds my path, but it always shows the next step forward.
Action, even in uncertainty, can reveal clarity through motion. The scars might be inevitable, but they are also marks of a life lived with intention... and well lived. :)