When your life nears the end and your vision begins to change from the windshield to the rear view mirror…will you see only regrets, things you wished you’d done differently?
We all have regrets. We’ve all done things we wish we hadn’t. And more often, we’ve passed on things that we wished we’d done. But how do we live a life of no regrets?
In the story of Samson it says that he killed many more Philistines in his death than in his whole life. I remember reading that in the past as a victory for Samson. Wow, he must’ve killed a lot of Philistines! But the older I get the more I read that with a more than just a hint of regret. Sure he killed a bunch of Philistines. And sure that was his destiny. But how many could he have killed if he’d only made better decisions.
When the Philistines finally captured him and gouged out his eyes I believe he was consumed in that moment with regret. He certainly wasn’t celebrating the Philistines he had killed, the successes he had made.
There are lots of places in the Bible where it talks about someone being banished to the “place where there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth.” I’m no Biblical scholar and I can only guess about what “gnashing of teeth” means. But I think it’s a place where regret is so overwhelming you grind your teeth. You KNOW you could have done better.
I believe that today you can begin to make decisions to live a life of no regrets. Our lives are the sum total of the decisions we make. If we want to live a life of no regrets then we need to be intentional about making better decisions.
I’ve often written about beginning with the end in mind. This is a good time to employ that principle. Take inventory of your life up till now. Are there looming regrets? What can you learn? What can you do differently next time? What can you do today to resolve the unresolved in your life?
Don’t come to the end of your life and be consumed about things you wish you could do over. Live a life of no regrets.
Make the decision to do it right the first time.
I always live in 24-hr increments and ask myself what can I do today that will get me closer to where I want to be. Haven’t lived like this all my life. So, I agree live in the now with the future in mind.