Checkmate! Life 3-Regret 0. IS IT POSSIBLE?
I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me
I wish I didn’t work so hard.
I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
I wish that I had let myself be happier.
These quotes belong to people who are about to die which is in the book by Broonnie Ware called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. Her books really inspired me and were thought-provoking.
NEVER REGRET BUT HOW?
It sounds scary to die with regret, right? That is why I am looking for the answer to how to live without regret. Firstly I’d like to express the reason why I had difficulty figuring out the answer.
1. I am incapable of ensuring that I’ll have the same perspective at all stages of my life. I’ll probably obtain a new perspective and new experiences in the future. The future version of me is likely to be unhappy about today’s decisions.
- Being emotional is as tricky as being rational. I haven’t yet struck a balance between them. People make up their minds based on their feelings which makes them error-prone.
3. All possibilities might exist simultaneously which means that whatever we choose, another possibility keep smiling at us and lead to ambivalence.
4. Here it is, Another reason that I felt a sense of confusion is to surround myself with superhumans who never regret. They claim that they never regret unlike me. Is there a legitimate idea behind it? I have never gotten the answer. Let me guess the possibilities.
- Ego ( The thought that I’ll never make a mistake)
- Deny regret
- They have secrets that don’t share with us. :)
5. Illusions of the truth are connected to the possibility of error. Our brain has the tendency to misguide us. So the reality takes time to realize it. It might be a bit late for us to notice it like the below illustration of the rabbit and duck contradiction.
Yes, Friends.
We have been making the decisions until we die. Our regrets revolve around education, work, marriage, and the list so goes on. All of them have an enormous effect on our life in the long term. All right, How do make up your mind to catch the ideal? It is tough, is it?
This is challenging to be aware of all the unexpected possibilities in our life. But behaviors toward them belong to us. This is cliche to say “never be regret” but remember the below quotes from Nietzsche by the time make an important decision.
Love your destiny — Amor Fati
My formula for greatness in a human being is Amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it… but love it.
Thanks for reading
Sevda
