Regret is a pervasive and terrifying thing.

The idea that you can look back on your life—on decisions that you made at the time—and come to the conclusion that you made the wrong decision. That the path you chose is thin, winding, and leads nowhere, and there’s no way to get to the path that you wish you had taken now.

Because now that you are on this path—now that you realize that it is impossible to turn around and walk back—now you know that that other path was a much better path to take.

I know many people who have felt this way. I know many people who have gotten lost to this feeling, who have become bitter and depressed because of it. And for a brief time, even I found this feeling creeping up on me.

I regretted the fact that I allowed my depression to cripple me for a year.

I regretted the school that I had chosen upon going into post-secondary.

I regretted things that I couldn’t possibly have changed or even chosen, things that I was born into. Things that simply were. Things that I could only curse fate, or the universe, or God, or whatever you believe in for—because only that could have been responsible for it.

And you know what I began to realize? There’s absolutely no good to be found in regret.

Once you start down a path, you can’t turn around and change your mind. You can only move forward, not back—and it’s important for you to keep that in mind.

One of the reasons why it is so important is because you can still move forward.

You don’t have to stay on the path you are on. Just because you have started on it doesn’t mean you have to continue. You can change your mind, you can start on a new path, and you can even cut across and cheat your way onto a new road. Your past is set in stone, but your future is free.

Your future is something that you still can change.

Often times, we make the decisions we do for a reason—and it’s all too easy to forget those reasons when we have grown and learned new things.

At one time, I regretted allowing myself to be crippled by depression; but I forget that I was crippled by it because I was deeply, intensely depressed, and I didn’t understand that at the time.

I understand that now. I know how to cope with that now. But I didn’t at the time, and that’s why I made the choice that I did. It’s important for us to remember that, because it makes it easier to forgive ourselves for the decisions that we made in the past.

More than that, we should never regret “the bad times”—because, often times, the bad times need to happen. Nobody’s life is constantly perfect; we all need to experience pain, because we learn from pain.

From pain, we are given the opportunity to find our strength. Difficult times teach us lessons, which we can then take with us into the good times, and which we can then use to teach others.

Maybe I did lose a year of my life to depression, but when I hear someone else voicing the same thoughts that tormented me during those years, I know what they are going through—and I can try to help them. So why would I regret any of it?

Regret can be a very harmful thing. It can become something that overwhelms us and depresses us—but it can also be a good sign.

We regret things when we realize that we know more now than we did then, and that if we were to make the same decision now, we would have chosen differently.

Regret is a sign of growth. So do not linger in your regret.

Be proud of the fact that you have grown, and take that growth into the future with you. After all, the future is the only place you can take it now.

~

Author: Ciara Hall
Image: Flickr/Naud
Editor: Yoli Ramazzina