How to Live a Regret Free Life

One of the most priceless advice I’ve heard is the time you have with someone isn’t as important as how you spend it.

The amount of time we have with someone is meaningless unless we understand the concept of appreciation. Look at these two situations: 1) You live with your loved ones, be it your husband/wife, family, sibling or friend, you never really spent time together because you were always busy with your own lives and felt that because you lived together, you could see them every day. Because of that, you feel as if there’s little need to actually spend time together. 2) Your loved one lives far away and because you don’t see them often, you spend each moment with them when you can. Which of the two is truly spending time together? I’d choose number 2, because I believe the first would result in major regrets.

I don’t mean we should spend every waking hour stuck to them like glue and never have any time of our own, I just mean spending some quality time with them once a day, even 30 minutes.

This reminds me of that often, we get so caught up in our lives that we don’t even check out places around us that people would fly on a plane thousands of miles to see. A perfect example is I lived in Queensland for 11 years but have never gone to any of the exotic places that people pay to tour, such as the Great Barrier Reef. Many others are in a similar situation, such as my uncle who lives in Shaoxing, China still hasn’t seen any of the attraction sights there because he live there and can see it any time he wants, so he’s not in a hurry.

It’s interesting that some of us would travel around the world to visit certain places yet when it comes to our own city, we tend to put it off because we feel as if we are so close and can go any day. Ironically because of that, we end up never going.

The problem is, have we ever thought that perhaps one day, our time would run out? We perceive that we have all the time in the world, so we assume we always have another day. We end up putting things off or forgetting about them.

I used to be like that, always thinking that there’s gonna be another day, so I too, wasn’t in a hurry, until one day, I realised that it was too late and I would never have that chance again to say something to someone I loved. It was truly eternal regret for a lifetime, and from that experience, I’ve learned to never assume you always have another day. I’ve learned that once this happens, you can’t turn back time even if you wanted to. Guilt will wreck havoc in your life and haunt you forever. It’s honestly not worth it!

If there are people we love, we should cherish the times together and not take anything for granted. Always think about this: If today is the last day on earth, do you carry on any regrets? Don’t ever assume that another day is always around the corner because every single day is a gift. If there’s someone you love, don’t forget to go for a little walk with them, talk or watch a show with them, or simply making them happy. Only by living without regrets can we smile heartily through a goodbye, knowing you’ve fulfilled everything you want to.