I’ve rarely felt the need to go back to the past, and I don’t have the sense that I’ve missed out on opportunities. The choices I made were simply the ones I made. Every decision brought a certain experience. With each one I gained something and lost something else. But the path I took was, in a way, the only one I could have taken.
For everything you missed, you gained something else, and for everything you gained, you lost something else.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
What’s done is done
The fear of missing out is present to some degree in most people. Like any pattern, it has its purpose, because it can motivate us to step into new experiences. It’s often strongest in our teenage years, when we are searching for our identity. At that time it feels like whatever we choose, the other option must have been more exciting.
At the same time, the truth is we don’t really miss anything. In that moment, we didn’t know any better or couldn’t do it differently. And often it’s only with time and distance that we begin to understand why we chose certain experiences.
If I had gone to the audition for Lado, I wouldn’t be where I am today, and I wouldn’t be writing about all of this. If I had stayed in Županja, I wouldn’t have met many of the people I love. Every decision, no matter how small, carries a different level of experience. Each experience had its purpose and brought me exactly here. Today I am writing this article, even though I could have chosen something else.
Right now, I may not know or be able to see why this is useful. With time, I will.
One thing is certain. Regretting missed opportunities makes no sense, because it prevents us from living in the present moment. What’s done is done. We cannot turn back time, and spending it on regret is unnecessary, because the only moment we can act in is now.
Would it have been better if I hadn’t gotten married? Maybe. But then I would have missed many beautiful things that happened. Maybe I would have met someone else and things would have been better. Or maybe they would have been worse. And so I could spend my whole life wondering what could have been.
Time passes
In the meantime, I’m using up the precious time of this moment. Let the past stay in the past. It’s not important. I am here, and this is where I need to be. In the end, it’s the only place I can be.
If I think I made a wrong choice, I can learn from it. And if I want to do something I believe I missed, I can try now. Or I can find something here that fits this moment. Seeing what I have now is more useful, because everything has its purpose and its timing.
And no, it’s not always easy to accept, especially if we compare ourselves to some imagined version of who we could have been. It takes honesty to see what is here now. What opportunities do I have right now, and what can I do with them? Everything else is a waste of time.
What matters most is this. If I don’t change the way I think now, next year I’ll regret that while writing about this, I missed the chance to learn Swedish, for example. And so I can keep going in circles like that forever.
We don’t miss anything when we are present and engaged in life. What we do miss, by thinking about missed opportunities, is the chance to use the time and opportunities we have now.
I just want to make sure you don’t miss the things in life that happen when you’re not thinking. Because believe me, those are the best things in life.
Colleen Hoover
Author Ivana Song.
