Read time: 2 minutes
If you’ve ever lived in a place for a time and then moved away, I would bet that you might regret how you spent – or didn’t spend – your time there.
Nothing catastrophic – hopefully nothing you will take to the grave.
Just regretting the types of things that you, only in retrospect, realize might never come your way again.
Maybe you worked in Southern California for 6 months, but never tried surfing or playing beach volleyball.
Maybe you lived an hour or 2 from a major national park or mountain range, but never visited.
Or maybe you should have made a go at a relationship when you had the chance, but you held out for a better time.
I had a leased car with an allowance of 12,000 miles per year while living in Atlanta for 2 years of fellowships.
But I would only put 9,000 miles on the car in total at the end of the 2 years.
I never drove to the Gulf Coast, I only drove up to the mountains once, and the same for one weekend in Charleston, SC.
Sure I was busy with work, but not that busy for nearly 200 weekends.
When we are living back in that place, we put things off, we get too busy.
After we move through space and time – to the present – we look back and wish we could have done more when we had the chance.
Back then we didn’t realize that time was “our chance.”
“I won’t make that mistake again. I’ll enjoy my time in the present.”
Yeah, right.
We all have flashes of clarity, but consciousness is fickle and easily distracted by all the shiny objects that surround us.
Certain seasons in life don’t recur.
Sometimes there is magic at the intersection of a time and space in which we find ourselves. But the rub is that we can only realize it through the rear view mirror.
You have to choose – and in so doing, you are choosing your regrets with each decision.
What are you missing out on right now?
What opportunity is sitting next to you, but you aren’t taking advantage of?
Many of us wish we took advantage of abundant opportunities just a few years ago: lower interest rates, early-internet economies-of-scale, to start a family sooner, or later, to leave home, or come back to it, to choose a different path through medicine, or even to bypass it completely, etc.
Are you happy with your career path so far?
Has it afforded you the life you’ve wanted?
The life with less stress and the freedom to take advantage of the here and now.
Do you feel like you’ve made it?
If not, then why not? What’s holding you back? What do you feel like you are leaving on the table?
If someone many years from now, in some far distant place, were to ask you about what you did here and now – would you have regrets?
I hope you consistently reflect on the present and that you deliberately pursue what is important to you.
(Inspired by the Christopher Hitchens quote: “You have to choose your future regrets.”)
Whenever you’re ready, here are 2 ways I can help:
1) Let’s talk through what choosing your own path through medicine looks like. Over the phone, confidential, free:
https://calendly.com/tonyvullo/20min
2) Free Guides and Resources to Help You Reclaim Your Time and Autonomy:
