I've spent a lot of my recent years thinking a lot about the choices I wish I had made instead of the ones I did. I wish I had stuck out my original plan to be a doctor, instead of the non-STEM degree I got. I think of old relationships, and wonder if I would have had a husband and children for years, instead of being single while all of my friends get married.I think of the jobs I didn't apply for and the risks I didn't take.
It's easy to live a life full of regret of all sorts. A wisp of nostalgia can seem benign, but it is so easy to wind up wallowing. The reality is that most of these regrets are phantoms, not reality. We made the choices we made for a reason. Yes, we may have grown or have new information we wish we could have acted upon. Maybe our choices would have been different, but the reality is that we did not have that information. We had not grown enough to make that other decision. We did the best we could through prayer and prudence.
That original plan I had at eighteen? If I had taken that path, I would have almost nothing of my current life. I wouldn't have the same friends. I wouldn't have my own place, or even my cat. I would never have met the man I love if I had married early. My original plan definitely did not involve converting to Catholicism, and that would have never happened if I had attended a different college.
Nostalgia is a human emotion, and is fine in small doses. A life filled with regret is like letting silly little foxes spoil the vineyard of content.
