Never Think About What Could’ve Been

“I hope you live your life.” ~Jonathan Swift

Of course you could’ve done it better.

And you could’ve done it much worse too. How would you know what you know now until you got here? You had to go through plenty to learn the things that make earlier choices in life seem silly, absurd, wrong, half baked, or obvious. But you were a genius in the making at the same time, because you were doing something right. You were living your life with the tools you had, you were learning, you were knocking off wrong turns, kicking over obstacles, weaving your way through the sacred maze.

Sure, there are things we all feel remorseful about, things we said or didn’t say, choices we made that were lainbrained, but we must not beat ourselves up over the past. It is almost a certainty that all of us will regret something, because none of us have perfect foresight or insight. We are designed to be upgraded as we go along. But if ever there was a recipe for failure in the future, in our personal and professional lives, it is in brooding about the things we should’ve done differently to the point we’re paralyzed in the present.

How would you know who you’re supposed to spend your life with until you spent some time with the wrong ones? You hear this question all the time: “What would you say to your twenty year old self knowing what you know now?”

I would say, follow your instincts, my friend, listen to that internal voice, and do your best. Because you’re not going to know some things until you've looked at this life and had it kick you around some. You’re not going to become who you are until you make some mistakes of your own.

I would try to tell that self many other things, but he probably wouldn't listen; it would be as if I were speaking another language, or a squirrel were speaking to a fish, and he’d probably say, let me live this life myself, older, wiser guy, I want to see this with fresh eyes and experience it on my own.

In fact, I believe I did say that, plenty of times.

And I’m glad I did. Advice from older and more experienced people is valuable as long as you still listen to your own counsel, and follow your own moral compass. If you can find a way to absorb their advice, think about it, and still listen to your own, and somehow combine the two, you have the best of both worlds.

If looking back could teach me one thing about the future, it is taking advantage of every minute going forward. Don’t wish to change anything in the past, because for some reason beyond your knowing, you had to be hardheaded and do things your way. But be more efficient with what you know now. Be wiser and waste less time and make everything count. Regret itself is self-defeating and a waste of precious time slipping through your hour glass.

There is no time to brood. Live now, not later. Do it now, not next year.

The best weapon to use against regret is accomplishing things now.

The last thing you want to do is let regret convince you it’s too late. It’s never too late for most things, and sure as hell never too late to try. Don’t let what you didn't do make you think you’re somehow cut off from any possibilities of doing it now. Don’t let regret prove anything to you, except that you want to do it better.

“Dissatisfaction is not a bad thing,” a friend told me once. “It’s the impetus for change, that gets you moving, that makes you determined to do more and accomplish everything.”

Whenever we see things clearly is the time to act. Maybe it took a while to get to that point, and then you say, I should’ve done this a long time ago, but is it ever too late? Unless we’re talking about becoming an Olympic Champion or professional athlete at sixty, probably not. You’ve picked up everything along the way. You’re a human vacuum cleaner of knowledge, expertise, wisdom, skill. The choices you should have made before are still sitting there, and now is the time.

If you realize you blew some chances and you regret that, rather than sitting on your regret, avoid further regret by not blowing them again.

In other words, use regret in a positive, proactive way, rather than as some kind of proof you didn’t live your life. Don’t let the past cut you off from the future. You’re sitting smack in the middle of it, and you’re in charge. And you can do anything you really put your mind to, or at least give it a Herculean effort.

Your past self will testify to that; and your future self will thank you.

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Ron Clinton Smith is a film actor and writer of stories, songs, poetry, screenplays, and the novel Creature Storms.