Gemma Speck

What researchers found in their research assessing the regrets of thousands of people is that 24% of regrets were about things people did do.

76% of regrets were about the things they didn't do.

What they realized is that there are two types of regrets, action regrets and inaction regrets.

Inaction regrets, they are far more common.

So if you want to avoid regret, overthinking it is not going to do anything.

Making a decision will.

Make any decision, any decision at all.

The only way out of the paradox isn't to lower your standards so much as to tell yourself the truth.

There is no decision that will absolutely protect me from regret.

At some point, I will wish I had known what I do know now, but if I make a choice, my chances of that are going to be a lot less.

So if you are currently in a state of regret, you regret something you did or didn't choose in the past.

I also want you to recognize that the option you're currently living in is the real one and it is full color and it is complicated and it has good days and bad days and awkward conversations and admin and loneliness and traffic.

That is the real thing that is happening to you.

The option you didn't choose that you are torturing yourself with, believing that it was the better one, that only lives in your head.

And what it is in your head is not real.

As much as what hasn't happened yet can be convincingly very, very terrifying, what we expected to happen that didn't can be convincingly flawless.

you see yourself in that other city with instant friends and a cool flat and you're not struggling with paperwork or a visa and you're not missing home or you're not missing your dog you see yourself in the other relationship and the relationship you tried one more time to make work and you're laughing now and you're not arguing about money anymore blah blah blah blah blah

You're comparing reality, your messy real life, to something that is just completely like just buffed of all badness.

And you think that those things are equally probable and you think that the one that you're imagining could have happened.

That is not true.