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When I think about the phrase “No Regrets” I think of foregone opportunities. I don’t say “lost” or “missed” opportunities because a regret has to be based on a conscious decision. You don’t miss an opportunity, you make a decision not to pursue it, or to pursue an alternative. Looking back on my life thus far I wish I could say I have has no regrets, but that would be a lie. I have had many regrets. I have made many decisions I wish I could remake. That’s kind of the point of this strap, to recognize the poor decisions we have made in our past and take stock of them, to learn from those regrets, and to use that experience to guide future choices. This is what wisdom is, and with wisdom regret cannot exist.

“No Regrets” doesn’t mean you have lived a life without regret. Who could possibly claim that truthfully? What this strap really means is that you learn from your poor decisions.  It means that from this point forward, with the wisdom we gain, we can be more conscious of the opportunities we come across.

To live with no regrets means to make a conscious choice that we will think our decisions through to and anticipate what new opportunities each decision might give us, or might deny us. Even with this wisdom we may find that a future choice does not have the best outcome, but if we made our choice with the best information available to us how can we regret that decision?  We certainly can’t base regret on hindsight, that is an illogical thing to do. What we can do is continue to learn from our choices and build our wisdom. To have “No Regrets” means to be at peace with our choices and to learn from them.

So how about this: Instead of dwelling on the poor decisions of our past let us turn our regret into wisdom, and then, we will have no regrets left.

Sweyda