No Regrets, No Indecision
I stood at the babbling waterfall, stuck in deliberation.
“Is this the best place to do my meditation?”, I wondered.
It was a beautiful spot. The light glistened through the leaves. The birds softly chirped. There was even a perfectly angled rock where I could rest my bony butt.
But I couldn’t bring myself to sit.
“What if there’s a better spot up ahead?”, a voice in my head asked nervously. It was the optimizer in me, working hard to make sure I made the right decision.
Another voice replied. My inner critic.
“You can’t even make this small, insignificant decision?! Embarrassing.”
“I know”, said the optimizer. “Okay, I’ll just meditate here. Wait, no, I’ll keep walking. SHIT!”
My critic scoffed. “Isn’t the whole point of meditation to surrender? And here you are, optimizing your sit spot.”
“I’ll surrender once I start meditating. I just have to find the right spot!”, the optimizer replied.
“This is worse than the time you couldn’t decide which restaurant to go to. Remember that? Alison got hangry and you got in a fight. Shameful! WHY CAN’T YOU JUST MAKE A DECISION?!”
Minutes went by. Back and forth the voices went, in a deepening spiral of worry, and shame.
Suddenly, another voice entered the chat. This voice was caring, curious, and nonjudgmental. We’ll call it “Self”.1
“What are you worried about happening if you make the wrong decision?”, Self asked.
I took a deep breath and felt into the tension in my body.
“I’m afraid that we’ll regret it”, the optimizer replied.
“Do we have any regrets about decisions we’ve made in the past?”, Self asked calmly.
I gave it some thought. I’ve definitely made mistakes. Heck, I’ve even blundered.
And yes, sometimes there’s regret in the moment. “SHIT! I should not have made that move!”, I’ll say as Alison grins and swallows up my Shesh Besh piece.2
But the regret is always short-lived. Medium-lived at most. Never long-lived.
Even for big mistakes! I’ve made decisions that have lost me millions of dollars. I’ve lost friends. I’ve hurt people. I’ve hurt myself.
But I genuinely do not have regrets because, over time, the mistakes just become part of my story. Time seems to soften all regrets.
“No”, the optimizer replied. “We have no regrets”.
“Well then”, said Self. “What makes you worried about making the wrong decision now?”
I realized in that moment that decisions only feel hard when I’m avoiding the pain of a future regret.
Discovering that I have no regrets released all the pressure around the decision. Mistakes are nothing to be afraid of. It’s all part of my unfolding story.
The optimizer calmed. The critic calmed. The Self stayed.
I sat my bony butt down and began my meditation.
“Self” with a capital “S” is IFS (Internal Family Systems) language for your true being, your core, the “real you”. Sometimes it’s referred to as the “witness” or “soul”. Sometimes I call it “the one who is already enough”.
“Shesh Besh” is what they call Backgammon in Israel. My Israeli mom taught me how to play.
"I’ll surrender once I start meditating", I've heard that one a few times 😂 I'll be peaceful once I'm done stressing about this.
Something I've been doing of more recently is *making the cost of inaction explicit*. So instead of "this might all blow up", I ask what blows up down the line if I DON'T make a call. E.g. if I endlessly deliberate on my next blog and don't publish anything, I feel creatively unfulfilled. Adding a timeframe makes it real for me: if I keep putting this off now, in 3 months I'll be in the same position with the same doubts, having missed an opportunity to learn.
Wow, what a fantastic message. Thanks for putting into words a feeling of "waiting for the better offer" that I often feel, and realizing how silly it can be. Great read.