"What if" and "I wish" are deadly. Often times, nothing good comes from these phrases. Yet, it can be hard to keep those thoughts out of your head. It may surprise you, disguised as an innocuous curiosity about the status of an old friend, or it may be visible from miles away, sitting by yourself in a quiet and melancholy moment. Whatever the trigger may be, the questions often come crashing down onto you, a sudden and fierce onslaught of hypothetical situations, each more favorable than your current situation. It's absurd to assume that you have the worst possible outcome, anyway. That's just the mind, afraid in these moments of weakness, acutely aware of the permanence of decisions and the inexorable march of time.
Sometimes, though, it's important to look at these moments of regret, for they come with a reason. There are times when the regret is nothing more than a quagmire of self-pity and fantasy, but there are also times when it is very incisive analysis of your state. It is times like these when accepting the regret for what it is allows you to conquer it and learn. Perhaps you should restore contact with that person, rather than regretting that it lapsed. Perhaps you should take the next opportunity, or work your hardest to create one if it won't likely present itself again on its own.
Perhaps you should just accept it for what it is and let go. It is repeated to the point of banality, but it bears explaining once more that the nature of life is transient along with everything in it. It is necessary to learn firsthand how to deal with change. Often we look at change as "better" or "worse," and sometimes that sort of judgment fits, but it's also very likely that the change is neither, and just "different." Of course, it's easier to qualify these changes in a positive or a negative light, because often people are looking to find evidence to support their contemporary worldview. Obviously, condemning all change as negative is dangerous and damning to your growth, for obvious reasons. At times, however, seeing change as positive can be just as damaging, and more insidious because it may not seem unhealthy at first glance. A man on the sand shouldn't bemoan the raising of the tide for the sake of complaining about the change, but a man pulled out to sea by the riptide shouldn't view the event as a happy opportunity to change his surroundings and do nothing.
Or, "regret can be a good and important part of realizing what's important to you in life, but don't forget that there's a whole fuckin' life for you out there. You need to live more if you want to regret less."
