Sep 25

Sep 25 Don't Be Sorry. Be Different.

Quinn Correll

life itself

Do you have any regrets?

Any at all?

Something you said, or didn’t say.

Something you did, or didn’t do.

Someone you let down, let in, let go of…

Yeah. Me too.

The hardest thing about regrets is the inevitability of time continuing forward and the inability to move time back.

If you could just go back, if you could re do it, turn back the clock, freeze the frame… then everything would be better… right?

Maybe, but you’ll never really know. Dwelling on your mistakes and missteps only holds you down, learning from them however, allows you to move forward.

When people ask me if I have regrets in life, I tell them no. But that is a lie.

Of course, there are things in my past that I would sell my soul to change. There are people from my past that I wish I could erase. I have said and done things that I am ashamed of and I look back on and feel overwhelmed with self-disappointment. There are opportunities that I passed up, people I never reached out to, but should have, and paths I knew better than to take.

But those are in the past.

No matter how many stars I wish on or birthday candles I blow out, I can’t click my heels three times and wipe my slate clean. I have no reset button.

No one does.

When I was in the ninth grade I had a teacher named Mr. Deighton. He was this little old man that wore the same outfit three days in a row. He was kind, calm and extremely wise and in our class, when people would apologize for misbehaving or getting into trouble, he would tell them,

“Don’t be sorry. Be different.”

I had never heard that phrase before, but it has stuck with me.

Anyone can say they are sorry.

Anyone can say they are sorry and mean it.

But there is a difference between saying you are sorry and learning from your mistakes. If you apologize, but you never change how you acted or what you said, then there is no point in apologizing. You have to put in the effort to do better and be different so that next time, you won’t need to apologize, because you won’t repeat it.

Living a life overthinking about the ways you were wrong can become lonely and self-destructive extremely quickly. It does not change what has happened, it doesn’t fix what’s been done.

So, learn. Apologize. Recognize the mistake and never repeat it. Tell yourself that you will do better and be better.

If you have regrets, acknowledge them. Let them be a lesson for how you choose to live your life.

People make mistakes- it is part of what makes us human. We are imperfect beings creating non-linear stories.

In the moment, a mistake can feel like the end of the world, and for a while it will be. The fact that it feels that way, already shows that you understand how it was wrong and you’re on your way to learning from it.

There is no excuse for bad choices. Making excuses for a bad decision is a waste of time. A bad decision is a bad decision. The best thing you can do is own up to it, apologize for it and promise to do better.

It is a lesson that comes with time and practice. It is difficult to learn and even more difficult to achieve.

But a life dwelling on regrets isn’t living.