A contemplative post about the regrets in my life

Now I don't have many regrets.

For starters I can't regret anything that I had no say in.

I can't regret Chloe, my black cat which I had when I was 12, getting run over outside my house. I couldn't have controlled that.
I can't regret the fact that when I was 15 I tore my ear during a rugby trials match for the Dorset and Wiltshire county team, which resulted in me being carted to hospital and missing a place on the squad. I couldn't have controlled that.
I can't regret the rain falling on my head or the flow of a river or the turning of the earth. I have no control over any of those things.

The only thing I can regret is the decisions I've made.

However, looking back, every choice I've taken over the last 33 years has been consciously made for a specific reason. At the time, for whatever reason, I chose to take one direction over another.

Now some of those decisions I can look back in hindsight and decide that I'd made the wrong decision.

Like when I was 18 and I tried to slide across the floor of a nightclub in Crete during a foam party. I've still got the scars where my hip bones scraped against the rough floor.
Or the time I was 16 and decided to leave a house party without looking where I was going. In front of a room full of friends (who were way cooler than me) I walked straight into a closed patio door.
Or my fashion sense at any point between about 1995 and... well today if I'm honest.

I've come to notice a theme.

It seems that every time I make a decision I regret, it's because I'm thinking about what other people are thinking of me. I'm far too conscious of what's cool and what's not cool.

Thankfully as I've grown older I've realised it doesn't matter that I'm about as cool as a pink hairdryer on the highest heat setting.

Being uncool is the new cool anyway.

Also, I'm a dad so I've got full licence to be as uncool as possible. I fully intend to be as uncool and embarrassing to the Sprog as possible as the years push forward.

All in all, I seem to have got better at making decisions not based around what other people think is cool, but what I think is the right thing to do. I've become more confident in trusting my own instincts.

Which leads me to the reason I am posting this blog today. On Sunday we had the biggest snow dump in South East England for the last 4 or 5 years. It was brilliant! Sadly, as the week went on I watched the snow slowly melt.

Yesterday I realised I had a choice:

I could either stay inside and do some work at my laptop or I could go for a walk in the snow.

I knew I should go out and get some cold fresh air. The sun was shining. The birds were singing. I could've taken some awesome pictures and enjoyed the crisp clean air.

Obviously, like a prize idiot, I chose to stay indoors.

I regret my decision.

Today it has rained all morning and the snow has melted. FML.

Lesson learned - do what you know in your heart is the right thing to do. Don't do the easy thing. Do what is hard and meaningful.