Regret
2022 08 01
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Someone told me a phrase one time that has always stuck with me: "Take what you want," said God, "But pay for it."
Understand, I'm not a religious person by any stretch. I'm quite an atheist, an anti-theist, and the older I get the more of both I become. But it did lead me to one of the more important realisations I've ever had: Accepting that regret is a choice. It's part of a price you (potentially) pay for doing/not doing something. People talk about regret like it must be avoided at all costs, like it's somehow the worst punishment there is. But it isn't. It's part of the process.
The easiest way to illustrate it is my choice to be sterilised because I didn't want children. Was it possible I'd have later regretted the surgery? Sure. But at the time it was done it was the right choice for me, and was by no means irreversible (*) nor unsolvable by some other means. But the potential of regret was the choice I accepted for the choice I needed to make.
Regret isn't a thing to be feared or avoided, though there's ways to mitigate it in some situations. It's a thing that you accept as part of whatever process it is you're going through or decision you need to make. Accepting that regret doesn't need to be avoided like an unholy plague, or feared like the devil himself, removes a lot of stress and guilt.
(*) I had clips put on my fallopian tubes, which was a reversible procedure with surgery. Apparently the current procedure of choice is a salpingectomy, where they actually remove parts of the fallopian tubes.