Regrets

First off, I think it’s pretty mature of you to come to that realization at such a young age. I know it hurts like a motherf***er.

But that is what life is about (or at least, it’s a useful life skill): Learning from experience. Which is what you’re doing now.

You say you didn’t care. Why do you think that was? That might be interesting to find out.

You also say that if you could start over, you would do everything differently. How? I think that is interesting too.

It’s also super cool that you take responsibility for what you did and didn’t do. But don’t blame yourself. We’re all imperfect. We all screw up.

Look at someone like Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods did everything right. He practised golf so obsessively that his parents made golf practise a reward for him after he had finished his homework. He accomplished great things and won great accolades. But then there was the minor detail of major sex addiction and his private life came apart. He struggles with back pain, and my unqualified guess would be that it’s because he has worked it too hard (or in the wrong way) in the past. So we all make mistakes.

But both Tiger Woods and me and you can take our lives back. Okay, so we did some dumb things in the past, but we can change. We don’t have to keep doing them.

Also, my guess is that you probably accomplished a lot more, for yourself and others, than you give yourself credit for. You’re just focused on your regrets.

You measure yourself against others, and that’s fine as motivation, but it’s not a stick to beat yourself over the head with. At the end of the day, we’re all connected, and most people probably want you to do well and be happy. Because then everybody wins.

Funnily enough, I have also been thinking about my regrets lately, and I find it super instructive. There is a lot of self-knowledge buried there, for sure.

One example is that in high school, I chose to do physics and chemistry because it was required to get into a college that my friends planned to attend. I figured: Idk what I want to do, but at least this will open some doors, so I just did it. Even though my favourite subjects were history and English. In retrospect, it’s so stupid. Physics and chemistry were interesting, but I was passionate about the other subjects.

So that was long. I also love singing and songwriting and soccer. I hope you do way more of what you want in the future, activities that bring you joy.

Good luck 🙂