Future Regrets

Landscape: The Parc Monceau, Claude Monet, 1876

You ask me to think about what I will one day regret. The good news is — I can tell you.

I’ll wish that I’d never been shy. It’s such a foolish way to live, one that asphyxiates opportunities before they even emerge. How much lingering attention do you pay to others when you’re out in the world? Remember that everyone else is equally absorbed by their own affairs, and that even if they did rest their gaze upon you, you will shortly be erased from their RAM. Think of the last crowded room you were in… which faces do you remember?

I’ll wish I’d spent more time creating and less time consuming. Creating puts something back into the world and simply feels better, whereas most of what is consumed today is of low quality and usually makes you feel the same. Works of art are the exception, of course.

I’ll wish that I’d made an effort to compound on good habits, and not let bad habits become too ingrained in my life. Repetition is a powerful exponent, and even the strong-willed can fall into pernicious cycles. To become someone you admire is a daily endeavor.

I’ll wish that I’d sooner questioned all of the rules that had been imposed upon me, and sooner chosen the game I wanted to play.

I’ll wish that I hadn’t become too calloused and estranged from my tender and romantic nature. Life has a way of hardening you as you go through more seasons. Isn’t that a shame? How pleasant it is to let yourself feel and love without needing to wear armor. Similarly, how nice it is to see everyone and everything around you with a beginner’s eye and mind, as if for the very first time.

I’ll wish I’d spent more time with my family and asked them braver and more imaginative questions.

I’ll wish that if I had lost touch with a friend for no good reason, I had done something about it before we were too far apart. What begins like a crack in the ground can in time become an imposing canyon, so you must reach out your hand to the other side while you still can… if that is what you want.

I’ll wish that I’d listened to my little voice about whom to trust.

I’ll wish that I’d gone on more adventures with my closest ones, fled the routine that hungrily swallows the days and makes them fade away into nameless, shapeless weeks and soon entire calendars. That I’d been more whimsical; less responsible. That I’d had a little more fun.

I’ll wish that I’d been quicker to accept and love who I was (and had always been), instead of trying to become more like other someones. It is possible to admire and learn without ever having to imitate.

I’ll wish I’d believed those older than me when they told me to carpe diem because time goes so fast, and only in one direction.

I’ll wish that I hadn’t compromised with myself, never settled for anything but what I most wanted — not even for something that everybody else thought was great. If you need to ask yourself whether you have reached it, you haven’t. It will be obvious when you are there.

It’s funny to be able to see into the future. I wonder what one might do with such powers.