5 of My Biggest Regrets
“When you KNOW better, you DO better.” — Maya Angelou
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Some people say they have no regrets. I do. To clarify, I don’t blame myself for some of the things I wish I had done differently in the past. After all, learning is part of living and so is forgiving ourselves. We’re human — we make mistakes, we fall, we learn, and we grow.
I’ll be turning 30 at the end of March and somehow, I feel like I can’t stop reflecting. Every other day, I pause and ask myself some really tough questions: What am I really proud of? What is the biggest lesson I’ve learnt so far? Am I a good person — kind, loving, supportive? Am I doing the best with the life I’ve been given? Am I truly, deeply happy?
I won’t be answering any of those questions in this article, but it is those type of questions that have forced me to take stock of where I am today and how some of my past decisions and behaviours have led me here.
If you’re on a healing and growth journey like I am, I’d like to invite you to read the next paragraphs with two perspectives. First, there’s the perspective of regret — the part of me that wishes I had done things differently. Second, there’s the growth perspective because let’s face it, every mistake has a hidden lesson that we can take with us and use to improve our lives.
As you read through what I consider to be my top regrets, don’t miss the beautiful lessons embedded in each of these experiences. You can’t do much with my regrets, but you can use them as a starting point to evaluate your own life and to make some important changes.
Regret #1: Saying NO to the people I love.
I had a chat with a friend just last night where I admitted that I don’t feel like I knew my father well. I lived in a two-parent household and even though I was a daddy’s girl, I can’t say with much confidence that I really knew the man.
When I was 10, I told him I wanted to go to boarding school and he tried to talk me out of it for weeks. He wanted to spend more time with me but everyone I knew was going to boarding school and I felt like I was missing out. Sure enough, he passed away when I was 16 and the rest is history.
