Regret in advance

I signed myself up for an art class this winter.

It's me and 10 retired women and one man.

In yesterday’s class, a woman at my table said to me, "It's great that you're taking the time to do this for yourself. I wish I had started earlier."

I’m learning techniques of how to render an image in detail. This is the image I traced yesterday that I’ll be working on painting this winter.

I didn't think I needed reassurance that spending the time and money to take the class was the right choice. But when she said that, that's what I felt.

Reassured that I didn’t wait one more minute, month or year to begin.

Because even though the woman in class felt regret about the past, I think it’s possible to feel regret in advance.

To feel badly in the present about the choices you’re making that will impact your future.

I use the word “choices” intentionally. Because I am sensitive to the fact that there are circumstances in our lives that we don’t have the power to change, or at least change easily.

I’m talking about the choices that we can make relatively nimbly from day-to-day, that may not seem like much in the moment, but over time, compound and add up to something much greater.

Every time we push off those things…the things we promise ourselves we’ll start tomorrow…we feel that twinge of regret ahead of time, knowing when we look back, we’ll wish we’d have just started.

Regret-in-advance is a powerful motivator.

So if there's something you've been sitting on, I wonder what might happen if you put yourself into your own shoes a few years down the line, and imagine how you might feel if you didn't start now?