No Regrets

Screenshot Saturday

I saved this on June 12, 2021. That surprised me because this feels like something I would have saved…yesterday. In 2021, particularly in June, I was on summer break after a year of teaching post-covid. Josh and I were living in the bigger of our two previous apartments and there wasn’t much on the horizon for us. His mom may have started getting sicker at that point, but I don’t remember exactly when that year she went to the hospital and found out about her lung cancer. That October though, she passed. There was not a lot of time between the diagnosis and her passing away.

I don’t know that at the time I had anything to regret. Curious.

Now though, there’s much to look at since 2021 that has the potential for regret. I abandoned all previous rejections of the offer to become the principal of my school and said yes to going to grad school and actually doing it. It can be argued though, that it wasn’t what I actually wanted, like the quote says above. I never wanted to be a principal. I just didn’t want to make my “mentor” upset with me. However, I don’t regret it. That experience was the catalyst I needed to transform into the person I am at this very moment. It also gave me a masters degree that was useful in getting other jobs so I could finally leave the one that caused so much trauma in my life.

I don’t regret working at the job I just left. That was something I really wanted. It also gave me experience in higher education, which I think is what helped me get the job I have now. That, plus that masters degree I didn’t want. I know they value my degree where I am now because when I filled out the form for my business cards, I didn’t put M.S.A. after my name. But when they sent me the proof to approve, they had added that.

There’s nothing else in my life other than work that I could possibly regret. Josh and I have built a life together that is deeply valuable to me. And while the potential is there to regret not trying to have children earlier in life, I don’t regret it. I do believe everything happens for a reason and living a child-free life at my age is just right for me.

In general, I don’t think regret is a bad thing. It’s only natural that we sometimes look at our choices and wish we had chosen differently. But at the same time, if we look at the choices, there’s the opportunity to see them in a different perspective. The choices we made were probably based on what we wanted in that moment. We’re looking back on them from a different place in our lives when our wants are probably different. We have grown and learned and changed. We’re human. We are perpetually growing and evolving. Staying the same throughout our whole lives would lead to a pretty boring life I think. So honestly, live life with no regrets. We don’t have enough time on this earth for all of that.

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