Do it or don’t do it – you will regret both.

Soren Kierkegaard

Whenever someone tells me they have no regrets because everything that’s happened to them, and every decision they’ve made, made them the person they are today…

I always want to ask:

Did it ever occur to you the person you are today, sucks?

It’s not intended in a mean-spirited way to tear down a person, but a genuine feeling there may have been decisions that would’ve led you somewhere better. I get them all the time.

Yes, life often throws curves our way that are out of our control and we have no choice but to deal with it. But for the big decisions that are truly one hundred percent ours–what if?

This multiple branching decision tree we always wonder about (sometimes called the butterfly effect), is paralyzing. Sometimes, it’s depressing.

To the person who has no regrets, I feel a pang of envy because it’s obvious they’re comfortable with not knowing. In fact, it doesn’t matter.

And they would be right.

It serves no good to regret major decisions because that would assume there was a “better” decision. I’m almost certain that even if we could see the far reaching effects of our choices, it still wouldn’t change anything for us.

It also wouldn’t make those decisions any easier.

As Kierkegaard so aptly put it, you will regret any option you take. And in that regard, we should have no regrets.