This is one of the most freeing realizations possible. This tiny insight is worth the price of admission all by itself. The day that we learn this, breathe this in, and accept this as truth is the day we stop worrying. The day we stop worrying is the day we start living and loving and dreaming and sharing and making the world that we know is possible.
There are countless events and decisions and happenstances and roadblocks and invisible angels that we encounter each and every moment. The complete cataloging of all these entities is a rough approximation of what our life is, minus the infinite connections and the magic. Some of these forks or steps in the path seem monumental, others trivial, still others unconscious. We meet people, move from city to city, study subjects, acquire objects, and do a lot of sleeping. Yet nearly all of us are guilty of worrying about things that we cannot control. Most of us, at least some of the time worry about the consequences of decisions we have made, events yet to occur, and outcomes yet to be determined.
What is regret? It is the false belief that there is an optimal path. We each have an infinite number of paths that we could walk. Some of these paths are eliminated individually, others in mass extinctions. Some paths become possible because of actions we take and others because of actions other sentient and non-sentient beings “take”. One could likely spend a lifetime reflecting on this single concept and live quite a productive life, if there is such a thing!
We have all likely heard of a person who says quite honestly that the best day of their life was when they found out they had some horrible sounding disease. Few of us are likely daring enough to hope for such a path. What that person really means, of course, is that that was the day they started LIVING. The day they started dreaming and risking and failing and hoping. All of us have similar days, maybe not with disease, but with divorce or job loss or some other horrible sounding fork in the road that we find ourselves at. We still prefer health to disease and union to separation, but the number of meaningful paths on the other side of that scary barricade is still virtually limitless! If I personally hadn’t graduated during a recession and thus only had a single job offer, one that did not excite me too much at that, I would likely have never met my wife at that job….and had our wonderful daughter and be sitting here typing this for all of us. We cannot know the paths before us.
We hope so much to get into that particular college or have a special someone we just met return our phone call. We cannot be smart enough to ever know just which paths were made possible or improbable by way of a stock market crash, Emmy award nomination, apartment eviction, or misplaced phone number. This is freeing. Keep moving forward with honesty and love. Keep dreaming and growing and exploring. There is no need to worry about the best path. There is no best path. The path that we are each on right now meets our needs. The path is ever changing and ever abundant. The path is built as we walk it and as we need it.
