This content has been archived. It may no longer be relevant

If you’ve heard the “I have no regrets” line as many times as I have, you probably just roll your eyes when someone says it. Or, if you have a more aggressive nature, maybe you just want to slap the person who said it last (Hopefully you only think that, but don’t act on those kinds of thoughts).

I don’t believe we should dwell on our “regrets”. It’s not healthy or productive to waste a whole lot of time lamenting what we didn’t do, what we could have done differently, what might have resulted if we had. I don’t believe we ought to beat ourselves up over what did or didn’t happen in the past. That certainly doesn’t help us sleep at night.  It doesn’t do a bloody thing to move us forward in our lives.  It doesn’t help us achieve our new goals, or make us feel very good about ourselves.

Still, I think it’s a load of BS for most people to claim that they live their lives without any regrets.

I regret a lot of things. Here are just a few….. I regret that I didn’t stay at my original college, because it was the one I liked best, that was a great fit for me, and the place that inspired me more than just about any other place I studied, except perhaps for my training as a coach at International Coach Academy, and that came as a total late in life surprise.  I hadn’t expected that kind of emotional and intellectual excitement from the program.

I regret that I didn’t write more during a period of my life when I was overwhelmed by a lot of things, but when I clearly resented not having the time or freedom to devote to my writing. I should have made time!  I shouldn’t have given myself all those excuses.

I regret that I was such a difficult adolescent for my parents, who ended up being more loving and more supportive than ever I would have imagined as a hostile, know-it-all teenager.

I regret that I didn’t know as much as I know now about loss and grief when my sister lost her son, my dear nephew.  I regret that I didn’t tune in more to the struggles he was having about his sexuality, which contributed to  his drug and alcohol abuse, and that I didn’t know at that stage of my young life, how to best help and support him. . I regret that I didn’t have the foggiest notion of the depth of my mother’s grief when my brother died, or when she lost my father after 52 years of marriage. I was too focused on my own response to those losses.

I regret that I had to learn slowly (and am still learning) how to be a mother, that each of my kids needed/needs a different kind of parenting, and that kids can’t always wait for our exploration of the land of  trial and error.

I regret that I didn’t learn sooner how to access inner peace when I needed to, and how important that was/is.  It could have saved me and others around me a whole lot of misery.

What I don’t regret is the learning I have acquired from all of my mistakes, my blunders, my ignorance, my failed enterprises and experiments in a variety of different realms. I think I am finally getting just a little bit wise, which is befitting of my stage of life.  My wisdom is not as visible as I would like,  to the people who might most benefit from it (no names). Still, it is mine to enjoy and to use as a springboard for acquiring more of it, as I enter a new decade in a couple of years.

I know I have accomplished a lot in my life. Some people tell me what I have done is more than some others accomplish, but at times it’s hard for me to see it that way. There is way too much I still want to do. There are way too many places I still want to go, and way too many people I want to find a way to help.

I move forward, as I hope you do. I unearth my regrets on occasion, in order to refresh my memory and understanding of my life. After all, we need to be able to measure our gains in some way, and examining my regrets from time to time is a way for me to do that.

If you are one of those who insists you have no regrets, you will probably catch me rolling my eyes, even if I do it with some subtlety. I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, or to doubt you.  It just seems a little impossible to me.

Want to comment? I hope so. Nobody enjoys writing into a void! Are you out there, friends?

Certified and Credentialed Coach, Iris Arenson-Fuller, PCC, CPC, is a Life and Grief Transformation Coach, Life Reinvention Coach helping people (mostly midlife women, widows and Baby Boomer women) create a better present and a more promising future, no matter what they have been through in the past. She also  has many decades of experience in Adoption Loss and all adoption issues.

Contact Coach Iris: 

ir**@vi*******************.com