The Daily Mail has recently published the results of a survey that says people spend around 44 minutes every week on regretting our past.
We wish we’d saved more money, traveled more, stayed in touch with friends and that we’d never started smoking. (I’m thankful that smoking is something I’ll never have to regret. Having a father who was a heavy smoker was enough to convince me to never even try lighting up.)
I guess that among the regrets that people identified, there are some things that we can change for our future and others that we need to leave behind so we can move on. Regrets can paralyze us and keep us living in the past yet if we live without some sense of regret we won’t learn the life lessons that arise and we’re destined to keep repeating the same mistakes.
The Top Ten
The top ten regrets were:
1. Not having saved more money
2. Not having worked harder at school
3. Not having exercised more
4. Not seeing more of the world
5. Taking up smoking
6. Not staying in touch with people more
7. Not having taken more care of our bodies when younger
8. Not having appreciated an elderly relative more before he or she passed away
9. Not having taken more photos of experiences growing up
10. Getting married too early.
When I look at that list I can give a nod to a few but I won’t let them keep me wishing for what might have been. We all make mistakes but we need to acknowledge those mistakes, take appropriate action, then move forward. Sometimes we need to forgive others and other times we need to accept the forgiveness that we’ve been offered.
Can you identify with any of the regrets listed or do you have regrets of your own? Do you spend a lot of time thinking of how differently life could have been or are you using past mistakes to learn and move on? Are there some regrets that just won’t let you move on?
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I think this is very interesting, and alas very true for many. Regret to me = Guilt, and I have spent alot of time trying to work out how guilt has helped me in my life. The resounding answer at 39 was NONE. It is a useless, horrible, soul eating emotion. So a life lived with consequences? – yes. Acknowledge and ask for forgiveness? – yes. Get up each day and try and be a better person and serve others? – yes.
But guilt and regret? – gosh no.
#6, 8 and 9 – and that´s it, am I … “good”? 😉
I´m still saving money and, don´t tell your kids, but school? I did heaps of learning afterwards. Learning that actually made sense… Guess I´m one of the lucky people, I saw pretty much of the world already. And I do exercise 4 days a week (ok, I sit on my butt 8+ hours at work plus driving the car for over an hour, my poor back, right?).
Actually… I really do not regret that much. And I won´t consider myself running through life with my eyes closed.
I can agree with some of the items mentioned in the list. Then again, it is not really good to dwell so much on those regrets.
I definitely agree. At this point of my life, there are several things I did and would’ve have done in the past that i regret. But of course we can never go back. There’s a lot of time ahead in us, an opportunity to make it all better. 🙂