Trace

sitting on the train the other day, i suddenly came over all melancholic and started to think about things i regretted doing, or as was mostly the case not doing. with some time to kill before getting in to edinburgh, i decided to go with a bout of carthisism and write down everything that i regretted on a bit paper. or as luck would have it, on the back of a receipt for some curry (n.b. to soundtrack the whole endeavour, the killers' "all these things that i've done" was put on repeat (ain't black humour fun?)).

it felt weird delving back into things that i'd not thought about in ages. it was like looking at baby photos of yourself, cringeworthy at times but ultimately you feel a bit happier after doing it. after about half an hour of pondering, there were 14 things written on the back on my record of a kashmiri kebab. 14 over 10 years, or 1.4 regrets per year....as my boss is fond of saying (not about my work, before you start) "this is shit, is this...".

i won't print the whole list, but they ranged from "i wish i'd had the bollocks to ask her out..." to "I wish i'd studied harder...", or "i should have taken that career path..". After staring over the fruits of my labour, i went point by point through the list and analyzed what it all means in 2005. I realised that some of them i could do nothing about, they're in the past and that's that. Some of them could still be achieved with some effort, and some of them are really quite meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

however, it also got me thinking about the consequences. example, when i was at college i studied computers not as a path to a career in i.t., but so that i could join the royal navy as an officer. 3 years i studied hard(ish), and at the end of it felt great that i could send of my application. however, it was rejected on the account that my maths grade wasn't great. undeterred, i resubmitted an application, this time as an ordinary seaman. it was accepted, and i soon had a date for the entrance exam.

in the meantime i started to get cold feet about loss of freedom on joining, how i'd cope with the discipline etc, the sort of thing that most entrants probably ask themselves. so i bottled it, and didn't attend the exam, deciding instead to try for a life in i.t. (or working in pc world as it was then). as the years passed i started to think whether i'd done the right thing. everytime there was a conflict somewhere involving the navy, i'd wonder whether i'd have been there if i'd joined. of course i could have failed the exam, and it would all have been mute, but the what if? is always more intruiging.

then i started to think....by working on in that shop meant that i met people whom i'm privilaged to know as good friends. there are many things, even the little things, such as nights out, trips to the rugby, drambuie sessions, network nights, arguing about how good/rubbish the new star wars films were, stag nights, weddings, etc that had i'd not been there, it would have been an even bigger regret for me than not sailing about in a tin can is to me now.

then of course there are the other people i've met, new friends, girlfriends, friends of friends, work mates, that i've enjoyed meeting and that have made my life richer as a result. i alighted that train thinking that the biggest regret is to regret, and that although life may have not been as i'd planned 10 years ago, it's perhaps better than it could have been. fate, as they say, is a strange mistress.

"life is what happens when you're busy making other plans" - john lennon