Using regret as a to-do list
There are lots of things that I could do now to build my future into what I wish was already my present.
In March of 2020, when the United States went under lockdown and my two schools went online, I felt a sense of regret that surprised me.
Though there was plenty to do in the day to day just to keep my businesses afloat, I found myself wishing that I had built an online platform for music education that I could now share with everyone stuck at home.
Coping with the existential threat of Covid wasn’t enough to distract me from this insistent inner voice.
I wish I could tell you that I paid attention to that deep desire and took action accordingly. But there was always something more urgent, and five years later, I still haven’t done that work. And I still want to.
Or at least, I still wish that I had done that work. And isn’t that the same as wanting to?
Perhaps not everything we regret not doing can or should be translated into something we can do for the future. I will have to live with the fact that I squandered many opportunities to contribute to my retirement accounts, and it’s too late to buy that house with the sea view that was once available and within reach of my budget. Alas.
But there are lots of things that I could do now to build my future into what I wish was already my present. It might require me to change gears from what I’m currently working on or say no to something else, but that might be worth it. I could use my regrets as my to-do list.
It’s like that old saying: “The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is today.”
And I might not have to sacrifice my current priorities to make the dream come true. Even though time is finite, there are some ways of spending our time that unlock other resources: energy, love, enthusiasm, money, skill, and more. Thus, giving my time and energy to the realization of a long-held desire might actually make everything else in my life work better.
There are a few times in life when I have paid attention to my sense of regret and adapted accordingly. In 2016, for example, I started taking international trips because I was getting tired of listening to myself whining about all of the international trips I never went on.
In 2020, after years of feeling sad that I had built my life in a beautiful but landlocked city, I moved to the coast.
And though having children in my forties wasn’t ideal, it finally allowed me to transcend my regret about not having any.
Of course, there are some dreams that I’ve had to let go of or even grieve because either it is truly too late or I’m not willing to put the work into making them a reality.
But some of them, I’m not yet ready to give up on. They keep circling back, nagging me from my past or my future. For those, I can make a plan and commit to giving it a fair try.
My regrets and unease form a map of a landscape of possibility that I can give myself permission to traverse. Maybe it will come to nothing, but I will feel a greater peace from having finally tried.