The original topic for this blog was “regrets in my life”. But frankly I don’t regret anything in life. They are life lessons which has shaped my journey and who I am as a person. Good, bad, ugly; every single decision has brought me where I am today and I am definitely happy about that. What if is not something I buy into and like to look at the past only to see how far I have come rather than paths I have missed.
So on that note, if I have to give some life lessons to my younger self, here are some of them:
- Not worrying about what others think of me – As a young girl, I was too worried about what everyone else thought about me. In india, people have a need to comment about everyone and everything and I let it affect me. I have since broken those shackles but it did influence a lot of my decisions.
- Not travelling enough – I am a born hippie. I love free, unencumbered life, knowing more about the people and the world. I would tell my younger self to travel more and not worry about things like studies, job etc. They all fall through in life.
- Worrying about small stuff – I would tell my younger self to not waste time and energy stressing over little things of life. In the long run, does it matter if the house was not clean that one time or my husband was late doing what I asked him to or my son didn’t do well in that test. Worrying is the number one way of wasting precious time, which in turn severely affects our happiness. We should keep that for really important stuff rather than on trivial things.
- Saying what I feel – In my younger years, I was not as forthright as I am today. I wish I was and would have saved myself some heartaches and hurts. It is one of the biggest life lessons for me that honesty and letting people know how I feel is liberating. You don’t have to be rude but it is important for others to know how you feel so that both can move on!
- Not spending enough time with friends and family – My younger self would have never imagined that I would leave my birth country and make life in a new one. I would have spent every waking moment creating more memories. Time is something that you can never get back and this is a life lesson I want to continue to keep in front of my mind.
As we grow older and mortality stares at us, I want to continue to learn from my life lessons so that I can make small changes as I go. My aim is that when I am approaching the end of my journey and look back, I can say that I have no regrets!