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Good point. The examination should teach something positive. If all it does is fill you with regret, then perhaps you need a different way to examine your life. Perhaps think of the ways things went right. The good decisions you made even if it seemed wrong at that time. All people make some mistakes, even big ones.
regarding anxiety worry fear about "making the wrong" choice,
someone very calm once said to me, "There are no wrong choices. just different outcomes."
no matter what you choose, or don't choose, it is OK.
regarding anxiety worry fear about "making the wrong" choice,
someone very calm once said to me, "There are no wrong choices. just different outcomes."
Your interest in going somewhere you've long wanted to go, to see something that is probably a once-in-a-lifetime thing, probably should have provided sufficient motivation, but it didn't. Now that it didn't happen, you seem to be in a bout of self-blaming and self-doubt.
You also said there's a pattern of this type of thing, so here's a thought. You could be clinically depressed. Go talk to a professional -- someone who can actually figure this out -- rather than to folks like us.
I could cite myriad examples of this, as it happens all too frequently, but today was a classic case.
There was going to be an eclipse; a TOTAL eclipse - a rare event never to recur in my lifetime, most likely. An astronomical event in which I have an interest as I do in all things relating to nature. Totality was going to be available in my very own state, just a few hours away. Furthermore, it was going to be in a location which I've been wanting and meaning to visit for years now, but never have; I've even had accommodations there selected. I'm retired and have a totally flexible schedule; in fact, I had nothing to do today and tomorrow and am bored. I was aware of all of this on some level. Yet I did nothing about it. It wasn't until the event had occurred and the opportunity had passed that it registered with me that I should have gone to see this and enjoyed the destination, and now I'm kicking myself. It's a familiar feeling!
Too often, I can't see what I SHOULD have done until it's too late to do it, and then it's crystal clear. "Regrets, I've had a few" million! Either, as with the eclipse, it just doesn't occur to me in time OR I'm torn by indecision and only after one outcome results do I see that the other would've been preferable. I almost never get it right. This, in turn, makes me even more anxious about making decisions, certain that I'll make the wrong one.
I just call it "stupidity," yet I'm not stupid. It's obvious to me what other people should do in their circumstances, but not myself. It must be a clinical condition of some sort. It feels almost like self-sabotage.
What the hell is wrong with me?
Why do people always have to "diagnose" everyone and refer to disorders when actually there isn't a disorder at all. What you plan to do and what you end up doing is just "the way you are". I'm sure other people are like that, I know I am, but I'm not diagnosed with a disorder because I missed something I wanted to do. I'd like to fly to Las Vegas this weekend and not tell a sole but I'm not going to, and maybe next week I'll wish I had because Joe Walsh is going to be there. It's just a matter of what you actually feel like doing when the time comes.
I'm actually NOT one to pathologize differences -- in fact, EVERYONE who is introverted or shy being labeled "autistic" and those of a serious, somber nature being deemed "clinically depressed" drives me crazy -- but I think I know enough about psychology to recognize that the degree to which I seem to self-sabotage when making decisions goes beyond the norm.
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