Go easier on yourself. A trick to change your perspective.
Some words are heavier to pick up and carry than others. Of course it often depends on context. The word ‘love’ for instance. We can throw the word about like confetti without a care – I love ice cream/that dress/this book/your new haircut. But frame it with ‘I’ and ‘you’ and suddenly it’s a much weightier word.
One of the heaviest words I can think of, almost regardless of context, is ‘should’. Can it ever be used lightly? Particularly when we use it to judge something we’ve done in the past.
We can look back over days and years and fuel regret by saying ‘I should have …….’ Or ‘I shouldn’t have…..’ It’s such a judgemental word and it’s never a kind judgement. It also implies that the thing you know now that would have been a better option was obvious at the time.
The thought about options is a big hint about the trick to change perspective.
Instead of looking back and saying ‘I should have gone to a different university/finished with them/moved out’ change it to ‘I could have gone to a different university/finished with them/moved out’.
‘Could’ is a much lighter word that implies possibility.
Next time you have a decision to make instead of saying to yourself ‘What should I do?’ say ‘What could I do?’ It will leave to clearer, broader thinking.
And when you look back resist judging yourself with ‘should’. It will only lead to regret. Instead say ‘I could have’ and then just accept that you didn’t and see what you learn from a less judgmental, kinder perspective.
“Regret is a most useless emotion.”
That quote is from an interview I heard years ago. It was with a woman with the fantastic name of Zelda la Grange. She was private secretary to Nelson Mandela from 1994. Of all the stories she told the thing that stuck with me was her recalling Nelson Mandela saying that regret is the most useless emotion. Of all people he’d know.
If you like reading and in particular a good narrative with tons to think about, learn from and wonder at Nelson Mandela’s book Long Walk to Freedom could be for you.