Absolutely No Regrets

Currently reading - Insatiable by Meg Cabot

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. . .


Okay, it was really Ohio shortly after I earned my bachelor's degree.  My immediate superior Peggy was a woman in her mid-forties.  One evening, I and a couple of other twenty-something co-workers were at her apartment.  We were talking business and how much the computer industry had changed.  Peggy mentioned she regreted that she never pursued college.

This was back in the day when a secretary with smarts could break into the computer biz.  Peggy was a lady with a lot of gumption, something I'd admired about her.  Her litany of regrets continued as the evening and the wine progressed.

And I realized that same evening I didn't want to hit Peggy's age, only to regret my life.

Our decisions, for good or ill, are what shapes us.  Regreting a decision means regreting the person we've become.  And as I stride into that same age-zone, I realize regrets for what they really are--self-loathing.  You don't like what the person that choices you've made have turned you in to.

It's a new year, a clean slate.  If you didn't make the world's best choice, make amends as best you can, learn from it and move on.  It's not worth your mental health second-guessing yourself.  And when you're at a crossroads in the next weeks or months, ask yourself which option is the one you can live with.  That cuts down on most of the regrets.

And repeat after Madonna--"Absolutely no regrets."