How To Live Without Regrets

Would you like to live without regret? 

I mean, truly open-heartedly joyously without regrets. 

If you answered “Yes,” it comes down to two things. 

Do you want to know what they are? 

1. BOLD ACTION.

The people that I see that have the most regrets have lived a life of restriction, inhibition, holding back, avoidance, and procrastination. 

What are they going to think? Oh, I'm not enough. Oh, someday maybe. 

Of course, they’re regretting it. It's because THEY’RE NOT FREAKING LIVING!. 

If you’re one of these people, you gotta get what I call that “life on the side of the river.” 

If you’re not living, you're just watching the river go by. 

You're watching life pass you by. 

You can grow old and you can die on the side of the river. 

That's a tragedy; that's a life NOT fully lived. 

So the first thing is to get into bold action, to get into the river, to get into life. 

2. YOU GOT TO HAVE A STRONG PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY.

Because otherwise, getting into the river of life and taking action means a lot of either good or bad stuff happening. And there is a lot of anxiety because you only have the good stuff, not the bad stuff. 

There's bad stuff, which means I'm not smart and not good enough, and maybe I want to feel pain. 

That's not fully living, either. 

Therefore, you need to get out in the center of the river and get on a strong boat. This is your philosophy as your boat that allows you to navigate all of this life's twists and turns and currents. 

What is that philosophy? 

That philosophy says, "I will see this life and how it works."

No one knows at a fundamental level of reality. Suppose you talk to a theologian, physicist, chemist, or all the brightest people in the world. In that case, they'll have a different explanation of what's happening. 

The chemist will tell you it's just molecules. It's just randomness that forms life. 

The physicists will say there are quarks, and then there are black holes, and then there are cosmos. 

The theologian will say that everything results from the divine force and the unseen hand of the universe. 

The truth is, however, that you get to decide. You get to make it up. And so what I've decided, and I invite you to adopt, is the choice of a philosopher to say, "I'm going to choose to perceive that life is happening for me and that everything that is unfolding is for my best benefit, to grow me, to shape me, and to give me the experiences that I'm meant to have while I'm here." 

A guiding force is doing that for me and everybody and everything on this planet. 

You can think of that guiding force as the weaver. I think of weaving the web, the infinite complexity of all the beings on and beyond this planet. The cosmos is insanely vast. 

So I like to say, "I will watch the weaver at work." 

Then you'll find yourself going down the river of life, and of course, there's a fork in the river, and you want to go to the right, and you don't want to go to the left. 

What does it mean to take it out of metaphor and make it into practical life? 

It means:

I want them to say "YES" to going on a date with me, not "NO." 

I want this person to hire me and not reject me. 

I want the raise and not get denied.  

You have everything you want, and then life steers you the other way. 

You might say, "I made a mistake. I should have spoken up differently at work. I should have been sexier on that date, etc."

Say this, and you'll be beating yourself up and have forgotten your philosophy at that moment. 

You went for the job, and you didn't get it. Guess what? We were at work, my friend. You weren't meant to get that job. You might think, however, I know I was meant to get the job because when I didn't, I felt bad. So the universe is wrong.

But when you adopt this philosophy, you'll discover that something unpleasant will happen. 

Your first reaction will be akin to we're going to the fork on the left. I thought we were going right. I wanted to go right. Instead, we're going left. I don't want to go left, but we're going left. 

That little dance, how long do you fight it? 

How long do you clutch at it? 

How long do you grasp at it? 

How long do you ruminate on it? 

Well, that right there determines the quality of your life. 

Because if you can surrender quickly, you can get in the flow of life, and you can say okay.  

I think of this as having different philosophies, but I can think of a submission to the divine will.

Whatever philosophy you want to tap into, the Tao lets you say, "Okay, that's what needed to happen." And sometimes your mind will know why. 

Sometimes you'll not know why until a year later. 

I needed to not get that raise because if I got the raise, I'd still be there. But because I didn't get the raise, I became dissatisfied. I realized that I didn't even want to stay in this company. I want to change careers. So if I got the raise, it would have been the golden handcuffs, and I would have stayed there. 

I feel so passionate about this new calling I'm drawn towards. 

Sometimes it's years later or longer than that. Sometimes it's shorter. 

The more you strengthen this velocity, the more you start to find it within days, within hours. 

The more you know and reinforce that this is for my best benefit, the more you start to make it so, find it even faster, and say, "Okay, here's how I'm going to use this experience to grow." 

Then you're flowing in the current of life and laughing as you do it.

Until we speak again, may you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you are awesome.