10 Biggest Regrets of Life

During the long course of life we commit mistakes a lot of them; some are forgetful but some leave their mark for eternity and those are the ones that deprive you of your sleep, make the dusk fade away – THE REGRETS. No doubt regrets illuminate our mistakes and inspire us to strive harder and stop us from repeating the same mistakes but that illumination comes at the price of self-evaluation, a feat rarely achieved by few in single lifetime. Some of the biggest regrets of life are :

I wish I had followed my passion

Memories of childhood are the most cherished ones and are the first one that comes across our mind when we recall our past. During school days every class has an artist, a singer, a dancer, one sports star and many other skilled ones and each single innocent minds dreams of becoming an actor or a singer or a painter or whatever he desires but with growing age, the practicality increases and that grave reality of life belittles our passion and we surrender to the responsibilities of life. When your dreams are broken, it hurts but giving up on your dream even worse. Singing, dancing or performing anything on stage while in school feels like chasing our dream but when that chase meets reality and we realize what we compromised that surely hurts. People get disheartened when they think of the moment when they decided to pack their guitar or place their sports gear on top shelf of store room, but that remorse does not brings any relief with it. To meet the needs of two ends we pick up the career opportunity available in front of us instead of following our passion and that stings us throughout our entire life and stays in the heart as the biggest regret of life.

Loving the wrong person

A lot has been said and a lot is yet to be said about love but love truly is a cruel bond, makes you do things beyond your own imagination. Loving the wrong person has always topped the regret list of life for most of the people. The journey from “The One” to “No One” truly is painful, we are ready to go the distance with our loved one but with that person gone, and that distance seems to be a reverie, a myth. If your most cherished memories haunt you and give you sleepless nights then the decision to build those memories with that particular person is surely regretful, it’s a burden that one has to bear throughout his life. Some cruise away and some crumble, latter being witnessed in most cases. When in love your wits take a leave and when you regain your senses you realize; nothing gained, much lost. Thus, love is jinxed to top the regret list.

Educational regret

Education is the light that guides you on the path of life and if that light is diminished or faded for whatever reason responsible, that path is lost and one walks into murk. Not all are blessed with that light but those who can see it and decide to walk away from it anyway, surely regret their decision of walking away. Some regret not studying hard enough as required, some regret not being serious about studies while in college or school and some regret not being able to study because of family conditions; the take away being, a lot of people have this educational regret while in the last phase of life. Love makes itself count again in the regret list as teenage love affair is cited as regretful decision by many. Mostly, they agree to the fact that teenage love is distraction and it did cost them career opportunities. They regret the time invested in teenage love affairs instead of being invested in something more productive, in most cases studies.

Family feuds

As said by a wise man “family is all that you have”. Many people with a heavy heart confess, the arguments they had with the family members or relatives is something they regret, what they regret even more is prolonging that feud for lifetime. They confess, that they shouldn’t have fought among themselves when the world outside is eagerly waiting to make the most of it. On digging, ego is found to be the root cause of the rifts among the family members in most of the cases. That pensive silence is deeply regretted when one realizes that he missed the chance to live the life with all that he had- family.

Parenting regrets

Nothing can be compared to parental love in this world but raising a child is no cakewalk, be too strict and you might take away childhood from your child and be too lenient and your child might get away from you. The perfect blend of leniency and strictness is hard to find and a large number of people express their remorse for not being able to find that blend. With every failure that child suffers, parents take the blame upon themselves even if they had no part to play. Getting over the guilt of failure is the hardest thing to endure and is achieved by only few. Nothing is more painful for parents seeing their children tangled in the web of life and ultimately fail. Parents walk with the burden of their child’s failure and each failure makes them question their parenting and it stays in their heart till they lie on the deathbed surged with the remorse of failed parentage.

Regret of being concerned too much

If I wear this dress to party, what would people say, what will people think about me, would they take me for a vagabond or would they appreciate my appearance; with too many questions in mind about people sometimes we have to compromise with our desires and those are the times that one regrets later. Everyone has thousands of desires, each worth dying for but by concerning ourselves with people we burry those desires and take upon things that we actually never meant. When we listen to what people say instead of following our gut, we lose our true self and what remains is a mere facsimile of us who is desperate to walk the path guided by people and not the one chosen by us; when the road ends we regret that walk even more than losing our selves.

Letting friends go

In our lifetime we come across certain people who stay with us in our thick and thin – friends. But in today’s fast track lifestyle to keep up with the pace of life we are forced to leave behind certain things places and even friends. Almost everyone regrets not being able to live the entire life with the ones with whom they started their life. Sometimes moving places in search of better jobs or education or other reasons we are forced to leave behind our friends but in most cases sort to family feuds ego, arguments and small disagreements on some issues cause the friendships to fade which people regret. Since our childhood we are told that “bonds of friendship are not true till they are tested” and if that test fails, pangs of separation suffered are terrible. People regret not being able to hold on to their end of friendship and vow not to let go their friends in another lifetime but vows are taken to be broken so is this one.

Health regrets

Poor health can cost one lifetime opportunities, can cost you years of life and may even cost you life; towards the end a large mass regrets their food habits, they curse not giving up drinking on time, they are saddened to break that promise of one last puff every single time, they express their remorse for ditching dinner at home for evening snacks at stalls, they wish they had lived up to the promise of getting up early and working out, they envy the fit ones, they wish they had taken better care of themselves but all for nothing.

I wish I had explored more

One common guilt that a lot of people carry is not exploring the life in the way they wanted. Imagine following the same routine every day, circling in the same loop all the time and imagine doing it for a lifetime; disinterest of the people towards such life seems justified. People express their remorse over not going places, not having different experiences in life. They regret their decision of accepting the repeated pattern of life as their fate, they regret not trying anything out of the box to take control of their life and living up their fantasies.

Regret of accomplishments

Definition of a successful life is still being searched around the globe but one surely doesn’t needs to win an Oscar or Grammy or noble to be called a successful person but everyone tends to have small personal accomplishments and if one fails to give a thumbs up to all the things mentioned in his list of accomplishments that he desires, that regret stays with him forever.

No salve can heal better then time but some scars last for eternity, even one complete life may not be enough for them to heal, even then one need to strive to get over them. To have some regrets in life is normal but being regretful all the time is the biggest mistake that one can make; no matter how murky the path of life may appear, one need to find the zeal to walk that path, he needs to have that simulacrum of hope needed to live the life. No doubt scourge failures suffered in life sound harsh but the hue and cry of success earned in life is more pleasant. To go an extra mile in life and loose a bit of him to seek peace for one’s own psyche is a price everyone should be willing to pay. Impediments in the journey of life don’t determine our lives instead of being penitent about the, one needs to get past them and live the life that lies ahead.