With 2017 only a couple of days away from us, this is a time to reflect on ourselves this year and learn to improve for the next. One thing I always have trouble with is regret. There are things we regret doing, wish we would have done, and this can leave us stressed out. I always think of the line from my favorite musical Rent: "Forget regret, or life is yours to miss" which gave me inspiration for this article.

That lyric from Rent really speaks to me. If we constantly think about our regrets and worry about what we have already done, we forget to live. We miss life's opportunities and do not live in the present. Dwelling on the past can make us miss the present. One thing I have learned from my journey with anxiety is to stop stressing over the past, the present is a present, so lets live in the present. When I lived in the past, I missed out on what was going on around me. I learned that the past is the past and that cannot change, so I should live in the for the current moments.

Living in the present is something we constantly take for granted. In today's world, we constantly forget to just live in the present moment. With worrying about things that happened in the past, we have to let those things go. We have to accept that they have happened. By doing this, instead of dwelling on regrets, we can learn from them and they can be a basis on what we do not want to do.

2017 is approaching quickly. This is a time we can look at this past year and notice what we want to improve on. It is hard to forget about regrets. Especially with anxiety, it seems like they always come up to haunt you. They way to tackle these thoughts is to switch them. Instead of being hard on yourself saying, "I cannot believe I did that," try switching it to "I know this happened, but I'm not going to let it happen again. "This trains you to think more positively about yourself and switch your way of coping with regrets.

It can be hard to leave regrets in the past. But it is very important for better mental health. Constantly thinking about your regrets can cause you anxiety and stress. When you do as the Rent lyric says, "forget regret," this can help you live for the present moment and learn from the past.