[CHAT] Don't regret regrets

originally posted on 21-05-2015 12:28 PM

At the end of high school when my ATAR came out, I was disappointed to the say the least. It was enough to get me into university, but I didn’t do as well as I had hoped and I knew I wouldn’t be going to a top tier university like what my family wanted and expected. As this major milestone passed, I began to feel regret. A lot of the time at uni I found myself constantly thinking back to my final year at high school and what I could have done differently. “Why did I put so much energy into drama? It didn’t get me anywhere.” “Why didn’t I choose better scaling subjects?” “I was a good science student why didn’t I choose chemistry and physics?!” “Why did I give up?”

This regret soon grew into bitter resentment and I started to hate my life. Stuck in this negative frame of mind, I wasn’t enjoying the uni experience at all which didn’t help the fact that I was unsure if my course was really the career path I wanted to choose. I was unhappy at the lack of direction in my life. I’ve always had these expectations of success and it just felt like I’ve screwed up my ‘fresh start’ out of high school already.

One day I went pay some unpaid tutoring fees and got the chance to have a chat with my old maths tutor. I opened up to him and told him that right now, I mostly feel regret. I will always remember his advice from that day:

“You can’t keep looking back, behind you, over your shoulder every step of the way. Because if you do you will trip from not seeing what’s in front of you.”

He wanted me to think about the positives and appreciate what I had in front of me. More importantly he wanted me to be aware that there were new goals ahead of me and there wasn’t any time to be dwelling on the past because what’s done is done.

At the end of that semester I took some time off from study. And it’s still one of the best decisions I’ve made for myself. During that time getting away from the books, I got into the grind of life and I grew up emotionally and mentally. I guess like any adult, when a significant amount of time passes your regrets sorta just… fades out a bit. Time does heal all wounds. My regrets didn’t have that same grip on my life like it did earlier at the beginning of the year, I needed to focus on the question at hand ‘do I still want to be doing this course at uni?’

Taking time off gave me a chance to reflect on my life too, reflect on high school with maturity. I should never regret doing drama, I’ve had many wonderful experiences performing and it’s a really big part of what makes me who I am. If I didn’t do drama I would be a completely different person today! I could have done different subjects, but it was exactly what I wanted at the time. I did give up, but I was so tired of school at that point that I just wanted to get out of there and I got what I wanted, at least I can say I did it my way the whole way. I may not be at the ‘best’ uni but I should appreciate the fact that I am the first of my family to get into one. Besides, would I really be happy travelling 2 hours of public transport a day? (I actually love being 15 minutes away from uni ^_^). Overall I’ve got to take the good with the bad and live by those decisions I made and learn from the things I’m not happy about.

“Live a life with no regrets”- it’s one of those mantras that we’d all like to live by and I certainly believe it is possible for everyone to achieve. But living a life with no regrets is not the same as living a life with no mistakes, because that is an impossible expectation for anyone at any stage of their life. Rather it’s about living by your decisions regardless of the outcome and learning from your mistakes. You wouldn’t be who you are now, a little older and wiser if it wasn’t for what happened back then.  

So join us on Monday 25th of May to talk all about dealing with regrets and living life to the fullest! Join us right here from 8pm AEST!