How To Overcome Regret To Live A Full Life

One day there was a traveler named Sam walking along a scenic trail. It was beautiful. The river was cutting through mountains. Plants waving at him with a soothing breeze. Birds also were enjoying.

There was just one problem. Sam had a heavy bag tucked into his shoulders which he was finding hard to drag on with him.

As he moved on, it was bothering him so much that he just couldn’t enjoy the scene anymore. His shoulders were aching while he was having a sweat bath.

He wondered, what he had been carrying with him and opened his bag to have a look. It turned out that all the way he was dragging stones with him.

Does this completely made-up story sound stupid? But this is how many of us live our lives as well.

We drag on with us the heavy stones of regret that keep bothering us while we are walking this adventurous and beautiful trail called Life.

And no wonder that they take up a huge chunk of our happiness and fulfillment that we could have had if we just dropped them for our own sake.

Why overcome regret?

1. We all have it

In this show-off culture of social media where everybody you know posts about their success and happiness, it is easy to conclude that your life sucks whereas everybody else got a dream life.

But this is far from reality. Look closer and deep and you will find the scars. Simply put, we all have our share of regrets – small or large, more or less.

2. It doesn’t define you

When Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars. He regretted his act and apologized publicly. But does this one mistake of his define the whole person who he is?

He let his emotions run him and did something wrong. But he still is much more than that simple act.

Likewise, we all have those moments we regret about. But if you look better at yourself, you would find far more accomplishments than those nagging moments. Your regrets don’t define the whole you but only a tiny portion.

3. Regret feeds itself to get even bigger

Regret is a monster that feeds on itself. The more you do, the more it gets bigger. However, sometimes it happens to be strong only in your thinking, not in reality.

When I was a kid, I used to be a pure vegetarian until one day I ate an omelet with my dad. It felt shameful so about it that I hoped no one would find out about this (You know, kids!).

However, I did tell that thing to my classmate and he pounced on the opportunity to make me more regretful.

It happened for quite a while. And then, one day I discussed the issue with my parents and teachers. They politely explained to me that it isn’t big a deal. And it helped because that was the reality – IT WASN’T BIG A DEAL!

4. It is what you do despite it is that matters

As I said, we all have regrets. So if we all keep ourselves drowned in it, much of the progress that you see in the world wouldn’t have happened.

So the question isn’t whether you have regrets or not. It is what you will do despite it so that you don’t have more of them.

5. It is normal to be imperfect

One day Sam went out to go on a date. But it was raining heavily. So he walked carrying an umbrella carefully enough to not ruin the grooming he had spent so much time on.

As he was moving ahead, dodging every puddle of mud, he eventually found himself just a tiny bit dirty. However, it made him anxious that he wondered what impression would he make on the girl.

But then he saw a group of kids enjoying the rain and bathing in the mud as if nothing else mattered.

We all have got some mud stick to us. We all have ruined, to some extent, the perfect grooming with which God sent us. And you know what? That’s okay! Enjoy the mud.