Live in the Moment: Don’t Live In Regret

It's been said so often that life is too short. You don't think that when you are growing up, but the older you get, the more you perceive that the years are flying by. This makes it even more imperative not to waste away the years living in regret. It's, unfortunately, what many people do. People will often carry regrets to their graves, even on their deathbeds.

An essential aspect of our happiness relates to regret. Regret negatively affects our health and well-being. It can increase stress hormones and lead to all kinds of psychological issues. These can become more paramount as we get older because we have had more experiences that we may regret. We all have experiences that we look back upon and see that they created problems for ourselves or others. We can, however, minimize regret by making decisions that align with our values and what we want to achieve in life.

Often, regrets result from missed opportunities. I can remember my father, for many years, regretting that he procrastinated and missed out on an opportunity to start a restaurant business with an associate. The fact is that it was done, and it couldn't be undone.

I can remember about 20 years ago when I mentioned to my wife that I regretted never having taken up a musical instrument. In school, I was told that I didn't have what it took to play an instrument. Teachers often say someinappropriate things. I jokingly told my wife that in my next life, I'll come back as a saxophone player. She retorted, "Why are you waiting for your next life? Do it now."

In my mid-fifties, I bought myself a saxophone, found a teacher, and started to learn the musical scales, which I had never learned before. I then started to take the Australian Musical Board exams. I kept this up for a number of years. I was satisfied that I could do it. It was something that I can't say I regretted.

There are two types of regret, Passive and Active.

Passive regret occurs when you perceive that something happened to you that you determined created more negative than positive effects in your life. Active regret occurs when your perception is such that you caused or did something, whether to yourself or to someone else, that caused them to have more negative than positive effects.

Bronnie Ware, a palliative care nurse, wrote the book, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. In palliative care, you see people in the last weeks or days of their lives, and often, they'll express something they regret. The top regret that Bronnie Ware discovered may surprise you.