The meaning of regret

All of us have made the wrong choices in our springs of life; in the end, committing mistakes are a symbol of humanity. Maybe we regret meeting certain person, going to particular place or, the one I’ll be focusing today, making the wrong choice of a course, program or career in University, which may have a significant impact on the rest of our lives.

Indeed, committing mistakes are a sign of progress, given the best teacher tends to be failures instead of successes, as the former reminds us that there is still a lot we have to do to improve ourselves and rise up to new challenges, while the latter conveys the illusionary sense of perpetual victory. However, another feature of humanity is learning from mistakes in order to not commit the same ones again.

An interesting way to make choices during the decisions to be made during the University’s journey, design of personal projects, internship application or job selection and avoid falling into regret is to be an objective and honest judge of yourself in order to ensure whether you truly:

• Feel proud of yourself upon making that choice;
• Can imprint an everlasting memory due to making such choice;
• Will rise up to the challenges from making such a choice and will take these as fuel to keep self-motivated;
• Reflect upon such constantly;
• Among others

You can be an objective judge of yourself by forming a mental scenario where you view yourself making such choice. You don’t know the person appearing in such scenario, yet you are that person. Ask that person whether the right choice is being made, ask whether that person will be willing to savor both the joy and pain emerging from such choice, whether this choice’s failures will act as barriers or propellers, whether this choice’s successes will be taken as final ending points or new starting points, ask yourself honestly and thoroughly whether this is the right choice.

Hypothetical scenarios

Imaginary case I: from cardiologist

You admire cardiologists as they were the one who saved your mother’s life back when she suffered a cardiac attack. You are now faced by the decision of what career to choose. Will it be a cardiologist? You admire them, but respect shouldn’t undermine what best suits yourself, so you design the following mental scenario where you see yourself as that cardiologist: you are now a working doctor specialized in heart diseases and treatments. You see that you just received a patient who needs immediate surgery to survive an acute heart attack. You ask yourself: can you take the pressure of having the live of a patient resting in your hands? If the operation is a success, did it bring joy to your profession, or was it simply another “job done”? If it wasn’t, can you accept reality or will you suffer breakdown? What if you also took the role of the patient, would you trust yourself in being the surgeon? Will you fall into physical burnout or rise into never ending inspiration for your profession? Focus on how you interact with your community, with your colleagues… and honestly answer, is this the right choice? If it isn’t, what can you replace it with so that it suits this person that’s you, but you just don’t know?

Imaginary case II: mountain-climber

Influenced by your family, you like to educate other people, guide them, and help them, among others. You’re about to step into society so it’s time to make choices regarding on what to professionalize into. Though you like to educate, traditional academic subjects don’t seem to suit you, and you have a particular hobby you love yourself: mountain climbing. You ask yourself, what about teaching mountain-climbing. You now envision yourself as a teacher trying to guide the youth to learn on how to climb mountains and realize the preparation, sacrifices and rewards you’ll get. You imagine yourself as the student who is judging the “you” as the instructor, and starts asking for a teacher that’s good enough to teach thoroughly mountain climbing. You, as the student, demand yourself, the teacher, to be the best one. Can you meet your own expectations, such as for example, breaking a record in mountain climbing to demonstrate your skills for your students, accompany them day and night to climb the highest mountains, undergo the stress and cold the higher you climb? Can you, or can you not? Is this a decision you won’t regret, should reform or completely abandon?

These tips don’t necessarily work only in academic-related fields, but can be practiced in daily life. Reflect on your decisions, and minimize regret caused by wrong choices.

In the end, you are in control of yourself, of your heart, your mind, your attitude, your choices…

PS: I recommend reading the following books: Kai-Fu Lee’s 做最好的自己 (Be your Personal Best) and The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer