Regret

perhaps the worst feeling in all the human condition is that of regret. We all know it well; when you look back at your past. When you ponder the mistakes you feel you have made throughout your life. When you think, what could have been? You daydream through scenarios of the better life you would have lived if you had turned left here, if you had agreed to that then, if you had only accepted that outcome without pushing for more. We all feel the tinge of regret, and it can be a dangerous emotion to the fragile human psyche.

One regret I often think of came about five years ago when I was a junior in college. I was studying abroad the second semester of my senior year in the United Kingdom. The university system in england consists of a weekly course load and then a final exam taken at the very end of the year. The exams counts for 100% of one's grade in most cases and since all the year's exams are taken during the same period, they are scheduled over the course of about two months. The exams for the most advanced classes are at the beginning of this period while the exams for freshmen come at the end. As a result, older students get out of university earlier than their freshmen counterparts. I took freshman american studies for an easy a and was stuck in England till midsummer. Subsequently, staying out of the country that spring cut into the time I usually spent working in the summer. This severely damaged my finances going into my senior year of college and to this day makes me feel like I lost so much potential by missing out on half that summer of work!

The regret of that decision, to take an easy class and end up with a late exam, still pains me to think about... but I try to fight this feeling as hard as I can. Rewriting you past, even if it is just in your mind, puts a sliver of doubt into your cognizance of the present. By delving into the fatal possibilities of our past, even if a fantastical day dream, we start to question the validity of the here and now. In doing so, we take for granted the advantages we do have.

Live without regret