Analysis: BWALYA CHILUFYA
"IF ONLY I had married Jack, Enala…oh if I had closed that business deal, then maybe…"

Another person may say, “If only I had not listened to what they said or if I listened to what was said, maybe….”
Oh cut it out, will you? You did not do what you should have done when it was possible. Now it is impossible, play other cards in your hands and keep the game going.
Go back and listen to how you connect what was and how you think it would be, “maybe…”
Maybe what?
You do not even know for sure! Had you done what you are now thinking you should have, would all be flawless or better? Please, cut yourself some slack! Get off your own case. Quit regretting, do not cry over spilt milk, it is not worth it.
What help do you get by wishing things were different from how they are? Do you feel any better by living in regrets? Does the time lost or the good times you imagine, come rushing to you?
Nay, I doubt if they do! Everything is gone with time and days. Let us face facts here. Regret upon regret is all you have at your hands.
By you thinking about what could have been, you only get sad. You become a lousy companion to those who hope to spend quality time with you. You steal your own peace and joy.
Be kind to yourself, do not allow the past to haunt you. What was and or what could have been are best left where they rightfully belong, the past.
Get off wishes for once and get real. Face it, you will never go back to the past and live there. No one has nor is there anyone who will. Life and time are such. Once you live today no matter how good or bad that time is then, it is done for. You will and can never come or go that way and live the same life again.
Ah well, you may experience a moment or moments similar to what was, but never the same. Move with time and on in life. It is the best and the only wise thing to do.
For all that life is worth do not ever get trapped in the past. This is what regrets do to you. Once you choose to live a life of regrets then you would never advance your life.
If you constantly mourn what was, what is or what is to come becomes of little significance. Only your days past and what could have been is worth anything to you. The move you made to leave that time will always be the worst time and move.
Nothing and no one can ever make things better for you again. As far as you are concerned, only the past was the best.
Oh friend, how mixed up you have let yourself become. You need help! Look, life seldom turns out the way we expect it to. But aim at making things work just as well with whatever you have.
Quit regretting, make do with what you have.
Let not loud voices from your past crowd your mind. Some peace and quiet is what you need to think clearly. Think hard about how you want your now and tomorrow to be. Do not be bothered with the past and what did not happen.
So fast has everything gone past, let it go. Clinging to it will make your thinking blurred.
Tell you what? Anyone can think whatever, but know this: “What you did was the best you could have done then. Given what you knew and had, you could not have done it any other way.”
Also, be alive to this, each new day that dawns makes the past get further and further from you. The sooner you get over your past the easier it will be for you to move on. Accept it, the past is gone and will never come back the way it was or how you imagine it.
Instead of making yourself sorry by imagining what could have been, look around you in awareness. That Jack or Enala you did not marry neither did you close that business deal. You did not take that advice. Or you took the advice which has now messed you up.
Hey, sometimes it is so hard to get it right in life at once. Be consoled, however, the wrong turns you made are in the past now, leave them there. Let go and move on, strive to make things better for yourself.
Everyone in life has at one time or another lost out on a seemingly good bargain. Despite things having turned out so, people choose to move on.
The wise have made good whatever they have had in their hands. You too can do it. Happiness does not lie in you getting what you want. You are the happiest and most content if you want what you have.
When you look around you, what new opportunities do you have? Forget that which you think you could have had. What you could have had is not yours. Thus it is beyond your reach.
Reach out for the brand new everything. You have another chance at trying out something else. See it as a chance at making it with different people in a totally new environment. Work at making everything work now. Do not look back in regret, it is a painful drag you need to do without.
Do not amass regret upon another, save yourself from its futility.
What you once had did not work out, grab a new life. Do not live in regrets all the way to your grave!
Remember, what happens to us in life can sometimes take away all you have. Your mind can get tampered with also. But do not let what happens take your sanity too, fight hard to keep sane!
The author is a Lusaka-based life coach.