Up until recently, I have always been fairly confident with the decisions I’ve made in my life. Maybe this was because the decision always seems relatively simple, or perhaps because they didn’t have too many serious consequences. I mean, how many major decisions do you really have before the age of 20? In my experience, it has only been a few big ones. Picking a college turned out great, living with practical strangers was a wonderful decision, and switching my major couldn’t have gone better. These were all easy decisions to make. But as I head into the last year of college, and as the end of this era is quickly approaching, I’m starting to wonder if all the decisions I have made along the way have actually been the right ones. But even more so, I am wondering if the decisions I will have to make this upcoming year will be the right ones. Obviously the future is always uncertain, but I am beginning to fear that one day I will look back on my life with an overbearing sense of regret.
This fear of regret started to sink in as I realized that this year would be my last year of college. Although I am thrilled to be graduating early and saving myself a great deal of money, part of me wonders if I am cheating myself. The entire point of college is to get a degree in order to begin a career, but I personally believe there is much more to it than that. College is also about the people you meet, the experiences you have, and the memories you make. I have started to wonder if cutting my time in college down was cutting back on my college experience. Obviously, life is what you make of it. I am just afraid that rushing through college wont give me enough time to appreciate it until after the fact. If I am already starting to question my decisions, what will that mean for my future and the all of the choices I have yet to make?
Regret is something people voice quite frequently, especially those looking back at their youth. As someone still in my youth, a fear of regret has practically been paralyzing me out of fear of making the wrong decision. Will I regret the decisions I have already made? Or maybe I will regret the decisions I am currently making right now? I guess I won't know for a while, but that doesn’t stop me from wondering. Decision-making is hard enough to begin with, and even more so when you start to worry about the possibility of making the wrong one.
So here I am, 20 years old and wondering how the decisions I make now will affect the rest of my life. Sometimes I think I put myself through too much worry, and believe me, I wish I didn’t. I wish I didn’t over analyze ever decision I made, constantly wondering if it is the right one. As Fulton Oursler once said, “We crucify ourselves between two thieves: regret for yesterday and fear of tomorrow.” As I am realizing now, it truly is easy to get caught in this situation; scared to move forward, and aching for what has past.
I suppose there is no point in living life with a fear of regret. All that we can really do is work towards our future without being held back by the decisions we once made. Life is short, and I want to spend my time living it rather than worrying about the future. I may regret some of the decisions that I make, and I may not. No matter what happens though, I need to stop looking back and always keep moving forward.
