If a new survey is correct, you’re probably dissatisfied with your career or study choices.
This story from The Sydney Morning Herald suggests that a lot of Australians are unhappy with the way things have turned out for them. The findings come from a worldwide survey undertaken by global recruitment firm Kelly Services.
Among the key findings of the survey, 71 per cent of Australians wished they had studied further while 48 per cent wished they had studied something totally different.
Another 16 per cent said they chose the wrong career, while 25 per cent were still unsure about their career choice.
The global survey sought the views of 115,000 people in 33 countries including almost 19,000 in Australia.
It wasn’t only Aussies who were found to be regretting their choices.
Australia ranked in the middle of the 33 countries with 50 per cent happy with the way the country’s education system prepared them for working life, slightly higher than the global average of 49 per cent.
So are you happy with how things are turning out for you? Do you think you’re in the right career or that you undertook enough study to get you where you want to be? If you could do it all again, would you?
The ache of regret
Regret is an interesting thing. Our regrets are often based on an unreal idea of ‘what might have been’. We become dissatisfied with an area of life and decide that life would be so much better ‘if only’. If only I’d studied more. If only I’d taken that other job. If only I’d married sooner. If only I’d stayed single. If only I’d traveled more. If only ….. and the list goes on.
Of course we really have no way of telling if life would have been any better or worse if we’d taken a different path so it’s an unfair comparison. It’s a comparison that will never let us see our life in a positive light because our imagination tells us that other choices would have turned out so much better. It’s a comparison that will prevent us from living this moment and moving forward. Regret can be such a damaging and paralysing thing.
Regret can be a helpful thing when it informs our choices for the future and lets us move on but when it holds us to the past it can steal our joy and destroy our lives.
If I had to start all over again there would probably be a few things I’d change but when I look at how life is working out I’m pretty satisfied. That doesn’t mean that things are perfect or that nothing goes wrong in my life. There have been ups and downs but my life is full of people I love and it doesn’t get much better than that?
I guess a lot of it comes down to whether we let life’s circumstances hold us back and dictate the way we see life. If we start regretting our choices every time life throws up some kind of difficulty we’ll be disappointed most of the time.
I like what Paul said when he was writing to the Philippians.
I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.
Are there regrets you need to let go? Is it time you stopped living with ‘what might have been’ and started living with ‘what’s still to come’?
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Very well said! Luckily I´m over the what-if-questions.
“Non, je ne regrette rien” 😉
No regrets on this side of the globe (as far as I am concerned, that is…). But I think that I am a blessed man and that other people had a much more difficult start in life and less opportunities for education and a career.
I love Paul’s words to the Philippians too. I like the fact that Paul writes “I have learned”… he needed some time to wise up too. Even if some other people proclaimed the Gospel with less than pure motives, Paul wasn’t bothered that much any more, because he knew that Christ will be preached and that God was still in control, “But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.” Phil. 1:18
This is what I learn from this verse: try to see things from the higher perspective and rejoice in the facts that God is still on his throne and that Christ has overcome the world! Don’t regret, REJOICE! That’s what I say.
Good to hear, Iris. We can wish our whole lives away with ‘what ifs’ instead of creating a better future.
Some great points as always, Paul.
A good reminder that even Paul needed to learn how to be satiusfied. It’s certainly not a natural thing for most of us.
Regrets, I’ve had a few…. I like what you said, Rodney: regret, like guilt, is really only useful if it can inspire change or acceptance or some sort of action. Just letting it linger on and on is unhealthy and pointless.
I’ve been incredibly fortunate in that I’ve been able to dive into a new career – I know so many people who are “stuck” one way or the other.
Thanks hazelblackberry. I think many people are convinced that they are trapped but are only trapped by their own thinking.
I’ve always regretted not going to college. But if I had gone I wouldn’t have married young and had my kids and I can’t imagine life without them.
Apple, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. There are things that we all could have done differently but we never know what consequences those choices could have brought for us.
I sometimes wish that I’d met Pauline a lot earlier than I did but I wonder if we would have clicked as well as we did if we’d met several years earlier.