The grass will always look greener on the other side of the fence. It’s a delusion that besets us all and there’s a reason it’s so deceptive.

As you examine your life, you know everything. You know your insecurities. You know the hardships. You own the self-doubt. When looking outside yourself, you see only the results. You see other people’s finished product. Just smiling faces and satisfied lives.

What’s rarely considered is the path to those happy results. Where someone stands today required years of trials similar to your own. Everyone has fought their battles and everyone carries their own insecurities.

You’ve had choices. Your life’s road forked at different intersections and choices had to be made. Regardless of which way you turned, I promise you that the other path wouldn’t have been a cake walk.

We all think about what we’d have become had we gone left instead of going right. What if we’d gotten our shit together sooner. What if we’d worked harder? What if we’d really dedicated ourselves to that thing? What if? What if? What if?

What you fail to examine are the things you’d have missed had you taken that other turn? You wouldn’t be the same person you are now. You know that, right? You’d be different. Your life would be different. The common misconception is to think you’d be the same person, with the same life and relationships, only you’d be better off in only the favorable ways. That’s not how it would have worked.

Regret not moving to LA after college and taking your shot at fame? Understandable. But, you realize your 20s would have been different? You’d have made different friends. You probably would have married a different person. You wouldn’t be in the exact spot you are now only with the peace of mind that you took your shot when you were younger. Taking that shot would have come with trade-offs.

Jealous of that friend who had the nerve to start his own company a few years ago? I get it. He’s rolling in money now. His situation is enviable. But, you know he also paid the price, right? He mortgaged his house and invested his family’s nest egg. He’s traveled five nights a week for the last five years. He misses his kids’ soccer games. He hasn’t slept well in ions. Now that it’s worked out, of course the sacrifices seem worth it. But, make no mistake, it wasn’t easy. His life isn’t the same. He isn’t the same.

What about you? What about that opportunity you passed on? That big one that you still think about. All you can think is how things would be better. You think you’d have the same life, the same wife, and that you’d live in the same house, only now you’d have a better gig and more money. Missing that opportunity was a mistake, right? A mistake compared to what? There’s no way to know what could have been.
I promise you that there is no job, no amount of money, or no magic code that will finally unshackle you from all the shit and stress in life. No matter which way you go, there will be problems. That’s the part we don’t think about. We know our current lot and the struggles that come with it, but on the other side we see nothing but endless positivity. We don’t see the baggage that comes with what could have been.

If you’re unhappy, make changes. If you’ve made mistakes, correct them. But otherwise, be confident that you’ve made choices based on what you thought was right. Trust yourself, and stop the delusion that you missed out on a better life that was meant for you.

All you can do in life is make the best decisions you can based on the information that is available to you. Think things through, weigh the pros and cons, make decisions, and move on. If you look back on your decisions too often, you’ll begin to think of the things you could have done. And, if you think about those things too long, they will start to feel like regrets. Regrets will grind you down if you let them. They’ll make you think you’ve made mistakes, when in reality you did what you thought was right. There’s no right or wrong, there’s only forward.