What would you change?
15 July 2015
For most people, life is a series of adventures—or, in some cases, misadventures!
We all know that we can’t change anything that’s happened in the past but I often find some people tend to dwell on their life’s journey, wishing that they could have done this differently, or changed the way they did that, or maybe even had listened to people who were giving them, at a particular time, what turned out to be good advice (but which they ignored), and so on.
Maybe the tendency to look back is also more pronounced as we get older, a sort of age thing, I don’t know—but certainly when we are in our teens and early/late twenties we are more carefree, less worried about the impact of, sometimes, impulsive decisions we make—and definitely less concerned about the future.
Put it down to inexperience or naivety if you wish but, on reflection, many of the decisions you made when you were in the age range I mention above usually have a serious, material impact on the rest of our lives—and yet often they were taken relatively lightly.
Matters such as your education, your chosen career, maybe how you handled money, or even which place you decided to go and live once you’d left home.
Then, of course there is the “big one”, the big decision which will affect your life probably forever; the one I was saving to last: matters of the heart!
Who we choose to love and be with; who we choose to date and maybe marry; who we choose to have children with.
Decisions almost certainly made from an emotional perspective, with the heart ruling the more logical brain. Emotions sweeping over you and taking you into the arms of the one you loved…, yet, with neither of you with no real thought about the practicalities of the situation, no clear, definite plan for the future together. Love, as they say, is/was blind!
So, fast forward 10-15 years and time to sit down, pause and reflect on your life. Did you make good decisions concerning your romance, your love life, your affairs of the heart? Were they well thought through, well rationalised decisions or, as I imply above, emotional, perhaps impulsive decisions which didn’t quite bring you to the place you wanted to be?
In any event, don’t worry, for almost all those people who dated and married young, most of the decisions they made came from their hearts—some good, some bad; some people saying they were the best decisions they ever made and others regretting them as the dream of a beautiful life faded quickly as reality kicked in.
Still, everyone has their own story so why not take five minutes and ask yourself: if you had your time over again, what would you change?
And while we can’t go back in time, you can use the thoughts of what you could have changed, maybe even jot them down, to help shape where you’re at now. To make a better today, and tomorrow. 🙂
