This morning, I was feeling anxious and worried because I made some decisions and I wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do.

For example, there was an community event–it included a tree lighting and Santa–and I decided to stay home. But then when I saw a picture of it on social media, I immediately regretted what I had chosen.

When I make a decision, I try to forecast into possible futures and then choose which future is the best. But I don’t know if I’m forecasting accurately.

After I make a decision, I know what the results of one option. But the other option is still very much unknown.

So regret becomes really easy, because I can still fantasize about the road that I didn’t take.

I have to stop myself and remember that that pathway is not only still unknown, but also now impossible.

Regret is useful to make better decisions in the future, but wasting regret on the imaginations of what could have been isn’t sensical. I often regret decisions, even though nothing turned out badly–I just think that maybe another decision would have been better. But it’s better to only use regret when I don’t like the decision that I made, instead of just hoping that some other option would have been better.