Have you ever regretted a decision so much that you think about it all the time and imagine all the different ways the situation could have turned out, if you didn’t mess it up so badly? I have, more times then I care to admit. I regret decision I’ve made in almost every aspect of my life. I regret things I’ve said, times I didn’t say anything. But a big regret of mine is letting myself be scared into not doing something, into not taking a risk or a chance. Because I’ve come to the conclusion that you regret the things you didn’t do more often then you regret the things you did.

If you let it, regret has the power to destroy you life. It starts slowly eating away at everything you do, then it over time it builds until you’re left feeling helpless, hopeless and stuck living in the past. You’re left thinking back to every little moment wondering if that’s where it all went wrong. I know this because it has happened to me. I’ve regretted a decision so much that for weeks and week I would replay every interaction; go over everything to figure out what went wrong. Then I would create situations where I didn’t send a certain text to see how it would play out differently. Leaving me with just one wish: to create a time machine and go back and change whatever bad decision I made. This vicious cycle caused me to bury myself further into regret. It was only when the regret started to affect future decisions that I realized how toxic it truly is.

I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, the good and the bad. And because of this, I have to accept that things happen in order for me to grow as a person, for me to become who I am supposed to be. The situations that ended badly weren’t supposed to work out and the friendships that I lost, maybe weren’t supposed to work out either. Maybe all of the things that I’ve regretted have helped me to grow in who I was destined to be, become stronger, learn to forgive and learn to demand respect.

Finally, I’m here to tell you to let go of the regret in your head, accept that it happened for a reason and that reason is to help you. Regret doesn’t accomplish, and at the end of the day the decision you made will still have been made, you can’t change a decision in the past. In the grand scheme of things, that decision is probably a tiny blimp on your timeline, something you’ll forget about in a few years. So why replay it in your head? Regret is powerful and dwelling on it, feeds it with more power. Until you start to miss out on the life that’s right in front of you, the life you are supposed to be living. And then you’ll end up regretting that decision as well. Don’t let regret have the power to destroy a life you’re destined to live.