A-Plus.com recently did a project that captured my attention. They put a chalkboard up in the middle of New York City and asked people to write what they regretted most in life. This seems simple enough. They set out some bright-colored chalk, and waited with their video camera poised. The responses were from people who happened to be out and about in that part of the city that day.
After there were a considerable number of responses written on the chalkboard, A-Plus realized a common theme. Almost all of the regrets featured the word “not.” Not leaving their comfort zone. Not pursuing acting. Not getting involved. This common theme came up in almost all of the submissions on the chalkboard.
It made a powerful statement. People always regretted what they were never brave enough to try. They picked comfort over their dreams, and lived how others expected them to rather than how they actually wanted to. I can’t say that I blame them for that. Failure is terrifying. It’s easier to pick “plan B” as one woman calls her choices than to face your fears and possibly face them for nothing. It’s also extremely easy to settle for an average lifestyle. You get into a routine, it’s not great but it works, and then you wake up forty years later wondering where your life went. The ambitions of your younger days are replaced with dreams for retirement. Isn’t it tragic that these people live with the escaped possibility of their dreams every day? And isn’t it even more tragic that this is only a small fraction of the people who haven’t been brave enough to pursue what they actually wanted to pursue?
As the video goes to show, it doesn’t have to be a tragedy just yet. At the end of the video all of the regrets get erased, and on the board, “Clean Slate” is written. This was far more powerful than the initial regret portion of the video. “A clean board feels like where I want to be, where I want to go,” a woman claims in response to asking how she felt upon seeing all of the regrets washed away. Another participant described her feelings as hopeful.
You can always strive to change your life and make it better. Part of why regret is such an awful feeling is because you can’t go back and change what you did, or in many cases didn’t do. Everyone has regrets, but not everyone is courageous enough to change their lives and make their futures brighter. Not everyone is brave enough to wipe their chalkboard clean and start anew.
One of my biggest regrets is who I was while I was in high school. I regret not speaking up when it mattered the most. I regret being so unhappy all of the time and not trying to enjoy my life more. Most of all I regret taking out my unhappiness on others and not standing up for my peers that wouldn’t stand up for themselves. I genuinely feel guilty about this. I could’ve done so much more, and improved not only my own high school experience, but also the experience of others.
Since that time, I’ve realized my mistakes. I’ve learned to speak more when something needs to be said and I feel as if I’ve come miles from who I was a few years ago. I try to think more positively now, and I’m much more excited about the possibility that the future brings than I was back then. That’s not to say that I feel absolutely comfortable with who I was then. But I do feel comfortable with who I am now, and who I am striving to be.
It’s not an overnight change. It’s a gradual journey. I had to leave my hometown and go to college a few hours away, and even then I wasn’t a totally new person. I had to expose myself to new ideas and feel extremely uncomfortable sometimes. I had to make mistakes and then fix them. There is no straight line in reality.
All you can do is live and learn. No matter what though, if you want to live a life where you don’t have to have these looming regrets, you have to leave your comfort zone. You have to try. And no matter what ends up happening, you’ll know that you tried your best, and you won’t have to live with the regret of not trying. Isn’t that in itself worth the risk?
