With garage sale “season” upon us, I always think about a sale several years ago where the owners were trying to find a new home for a golden retriever. I had two retrievers at the time so I declined to adopt a third, but I often wonder if I wasn’t the one that was meant to have that dog. I have similar emotions when I think about another of my dogs — there were two puppies who were almost identical and I sometimes wish that I had taken both of them home…
…but then I remember that if I had adopted the garage sale dog or taken both puppies, I wouldn’t have the dog I have now — the one that has been such a delightful and funny pet.
As Dan Pink wrote in his Power of Regret book, when we look back with regret, we too often imagine only positive scenarios in our mind — where everything turned out for the better because of our actions. We never think that the dog may have been up for adoption because it was mean or that two puppies together would have bonded with each other instead of humans. Instead, we only think that we “missed out” on all the good and forget that we created other opportunities because we took a different path.
If you find yourself looking back with longing, inject some reality into your flashbacks. If you look hard enough, I think you’ll discover that your actions ultimately created alternatives, not regrets.
