One Thing In Common With Life Regrets

By Bayo Ogunmupe Many people review their lives twice a year; during their birthdays or at the end of the year. For those who don’t know their dates of birth or those whose religious faiths do not permit birthday celebrations. As for me I review my life at the end of the year while leaving my birthdays for felicitations. Thus, December 31, 2021 was the last time I reviewed my life as a septuagenarian approaching the graveyard. Moreover, an old friend had regaled me with the circumstances of his retirement a week before. As the story of the retirement of Prince Adesumbo Ajibola triggered my memory about regrets and incidentally the day I caused my Nigerian Federalist news blog to be uploaded by my internet consultant. One of the features uploaded onto my blog was on regrets in life. In researching the feature I found that there are two major types of regret in life: things that we did and things we wish we had done. Indeed, all regrets are matters of commission and omission. But there is one key difference between the two, and that is how we tend to view those regrets later in life. While we sometimes regret things we have done, we are often fortunate enough to be able to reverse those situations, to apologize for them or to make amends with people we may have hurt. As an example , Prince Ajibola shared that many former high school bullies seek out the kids they tormented in the past; reconnect with them and apologize; with a positive outcome for both people. In these way, these regrets of commission can be fixed in some way. But the majority of our regrets fall into the omission category. Our biggest regrets, especially when we reexamine things at the end of our lives, are the things we didn’t do and the risks we didn’t take. Common regrets in this category include not asking someone out, not studying abroad, not studying law or medicine or a profession; not starting a business; not moving into the city and other missed opportunities. “People regret playing it safe.” If most of our regrets stem from failing to take chances, that’s an interesting lens through which to examine our thinking about risks. This, in particular applies to two major components of risk: psychological risk and financial risk. Psychological risk is represented by our fears of change, rejection, embarrassment and missing out on other fronts. These fears are what lead people to avoid going abroad or opting not to ask someone out. What we often fail to recognize in the moment is that many psychological risks in life are short term discomfort or embarrassment we feel when things don’t go our way, which rarely lasts a lifetime. Financial risk can be very different, depending on the context. For example quitting your job to start a new business could have real, lasting consequences for your family if your new venture fails. This is where having a baseline level of financial security is paradoxically essential to having the confidence to take risks. If you have no savings; live paycheque to paycheque or spend far beyond your means, taking a financial risk is much harder, unless you have nothing to lose. We think of a rainy day fund as protecting our downside, but it also increases our upside by increasing our ability to take chances. The next time you have a decision to make, especially when some risk is involved, carefully consider a lifetime of wondering “What if?” might compare to a few hours or days of discomfort or embarrassment. I know I would have regretted missing being inducted into the prestigious mastermind group, The Guardian Editorial Board if I had not tarried in pecuniary denial working as a freelance columnist for 30 years.