This I Believe: Don’t Regret!

My family hates decisions. No, my family simply cannot make decisions. Maybe you’ve experienced this too. Whenever there’s some choice to be made, it’s a big deal in my house. Even small things, like deciding what to have for dinner, become huge problems.

The other day I was with my grandma while she was ordering Chinese food. Now, my grandma had never ordered Chinese for my family before, so she didn’t know what to get. After a good ten minutes of discussion in front of the waitress, I finally had to order the food for her because she couldn’t make a decision of what to get. Even after we got the food, she continued to wonder if we should have gotten another entrée. The way I see it, decisions like this don’t really matter too much. It’s a win-win situation – either way, I’m getting something to eat. Sure, another dish might have been good, but does it really matter?

Sometimes I think we all worry a little too much about simple things. I know I’m guilty of it myself, but life seems to be much easier and more pleasant if you just make a decision and don’t look back. Really, will the color of your prom dress matter a week after prom? You could go between stores and try on dresses a gazillion times, but if you can’t make a decision and stick with it, you’re not going to prom. Personally, I think having no dress for prom would be worse than picking orange instead of blue.

It’s natural for us to want to question every decision we make. It’s something that’s programmed into us as a child. We always want to ask, “What if this had happened instead?” or “Maybe I should have done that instead.” It always seems like we could make better decisions after it’s too late. Wouldn’t it be great if we could all go back and change our minds?

Actually, probably not. You would likely be miserable if you had the power to change your past decisions. You could never be happy. If you had that power, you would have to rethink every decision in your life to make sure that you chose the correct option. You would probably drive yourself insane with so many choices to make.

Luckily though, none of us can go back in time to change the past (unless you’ve found a way?). Why worry about things in the past (like regretting your decision for dinner) when you could instead be moving on into the future (like having some chocolate cake for dessert)? What’s the use in regretting something when it can’t be changed?

Ok, so I’m not quite perfect. I’ve made some wrong decisions in my life. However, we need to make decisions promptly and then learn to deal with the consequences if we make the wrong choice. I believe there’s no use in getting stressed out over the simplest little mistakes or poor decisions. Save the stress for harder decisions. Until then, just live with the choices you make, they’re probably for the better anyway.