Regret is a choice you make. In order to stop feeling it, no matter how much you may want to, you need to choose to.
I’m not saying this is an easy thing to do, by any means, but it does start with choice.
During a car trip, two friends get stuck in a traffic jam.
One starts looking around at all of the things that she now has the opportunity to see in more detail. She notices Art Deco buildings, some interesting cars, and some beautiful acts of humanity (among other things.)
The other starts complaining about how much traffic sucks and the world is personally against him.
They each made choices immediately on how to act and perceive. He will regret the time spent in the car, saying it was wasted, and she will not.
The key to no regret is to shift your perception of events.
Notice the learnings and takeaways – good and bad – that enabled you to grow as a person.
Ask yourself if the choice you made then was still the same one you would have made at the time, with the same information you had at the time. Anything else is irrelevant – because you didn’t have another option presented to you.
Originally Posted: https://www.quora.com/How-do-we-overcome-the-regret-of-feeling-we “ve-wasted-too-many-years
Originally Posted On: 2016-07-19