This Life

I have always tried to live my life with no regrets. Why should we regret? If you always do what feels right at the time then you have always done the right thing, right? So I don’t regret that extra Cosmo on Saturday night that pushed me from merry to totally smashed, and I don’t regret eating that kebab afterwards that I have absolutely no memory of purchasing (but, weirdly, can remember perfectly vomiting back up).

But when bad things happen, and life seems pretty crap, it’s very easy to fall into a pattern of thinking what if? What would my life have been like if I had done this? Or if that hadn’t happened? Could things have turned out differently? The possibilities for how our lives could be altered are endless, the decisions we have made to get ourselves to this point are countless and we all have enough imagination to take ourselves on what feels like a nice little holiday to a different life, to any number of destinations.

So despite my “no regrets” rule, I have spent a lot of time recently taking a meander down What If Road. Things have occasionally been so bad that I have indulgently allowed myself to really go there, imagining all sorts of wonderful outcomes so far removed from my own life that I barely recognise myself in all the action, let alone the other main players. It’s not a conscious decision, maybe it’s a self protection reflex. The mind is a powerful thing, if life feels bad right now we can all conjure up a good one instead.

We’ve all done the “I won the lottery” daydream. “Right so I’ll give so and so this much, I’ll need that much for the house, this much for a new car…” and before you know it you are getting the calculator out working out how much of your “winnings” you have already spent. I wonder how many hours we as a people spend imagining a life where we had bought that lottery ticket, chosen a different husband, not had that extra Cosmo? Then there is that depressing moment usually only minutes later, when you realise how silly you are being, and live with the decisions we have actually made.

Because the fact is that all of those hours spent dreaming about something we never had are wasted. What if’s are not healthy, because with “what if” comes grief. We cannot avoid grief in our lives, we will all lose something or someone at some point, but the “what if” grief is utterly pointless. Not just because it didn’t turn out that way, but more because you are actually grieving for something you never had. Which just reinforces that although indulgent, and sometimes enjoyable and comforting for a moment, what if’s are a waste of time.

There is no parallel universe where you made a different decision and took another path, where you had something that you don’t in this life. The past has been written. There is only one life. This one. And you and your life are a result of the decisions that you (and sometimes other people) have made, you can’t go back and change them. So there is no point in mourning the loss of that million pound lottery win, because you never had it in the first place.

I try to steer my thoughts in a positive direction, and look forward to the future. But sometimes the “what if’s” are tempting, it’s a dirty little secret, a little addiction that can comfort me when things are looking bleak. But it is also a silent torture. Like many other addictions, when you come down from the high, and return to reality, it only makes real life seem more dark and hopeless.

I don’t need any more grief in my life, I have enough real grief to cope with without adding fake grief that I have brought on myself to the mix. Ultimately I’m pretty lucky. There are billions of people out there far worse off than I am, and for the most part, I have the ability to change my future.

While “what if’s” are damaging and unhealthy, daydreaming about potential futures is a dirty secret that I can safely indulge in, and enjoy. The past has been written and dreaming about things I never had to lose in the first place is a waste of precious time. I can’t escape yesterday with dreams, but sometimes when today is not shaping up too well, thinking about what path I might take tomorrow can be a real blessing. Maybe a lottery win is a bit far fetched, but you never know, it could be me.