Choose your own adventure

A colleague of mine was having a bad day, so decided to make a wish.

‘If only my life was like those books where you get to choose what happens next and if you don't like it, you just choose to continue with the other option!’

I am presuming that most of us can identify with that feeling.  No matter how clever or conscientious we are, how much foresight we have, we’ve all faced times when we turn a corner, stumble upon the unexpected, and find ourselves wishing we had travelled by another path.

This is the terrible curse of hindsight that has afflicted the human condition ever since Adam and Eve stood in that garden, pondering whether or not to taste the forbidden fruit.

If only…

As someone once said, these must be the two saddest words in the world.

‘If only I had not missed my train…’

‘If only I had got that job…’

‘If only he had not said that…’

I am guessing we can all too easily fill in the gaps and complete these sentences from the story of our own lives.

But then I got to wondering.  When do start feeling this emotion?  Is it innately present within us, or some kind of learned response that grows over time?

If you look at the research, there is scarcely any research on the development of these powerful, ‘counterfactual emotions’ (the technical term for ‘regret’) in young children; but there is certainly evidence to suggest that children under the age of 5-7 years old enjoy a life without any sense of regret. 

In other words, fortunately for them, our children are not sitting there thinking ‘If only I could have walked at a younger age’, ‘If only I was taller’, or (mercifully for me) ‘If only I had another dad.’

These feelings come later and, in extreme situations, require real discipline to keep under control.

Remember Terry Waite.  Acting as the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Assistant for Anglican Communion Affairs, he travelled to Lebanon to try and secure the release of four hostages.  The journey resulted in his kidnapping and subsequent incarceration until 1991.

What is interesting about Waite’s story, however, is the strength of mind and resolve that brought him through this ordeal.  Looking back on his experience, Waite himself once commented:

"I remember saying three things to myself after I was taken hostage which somehow stood me in good stead," he has said. "No regrets - you haven't done everything correctly, you're bound to have made mistakes, but stick by what you've done. No self pity - don't begin to feel sorry for yourself, there are loads of people who are in worse situations than yourself. And no over-sentimentality - don't look back and say, 'If only I'd spent more time with the family and had longer holidays' - life has been lived, you cannot re-live it."[i]

And perhaps that’s a lesson for us all: no regrets, no self-pity and no over-sentimentality.  Although, I know that is easier said than done.

After all, we are not all born to be Terry Waite.

My colleague had a bad day and wished that life was more like those storybooks where you get to choose what happens next.  As someone close to her at the time pointed out, however, those Choose Your Own Adventure books that were so popular in the 1980s weren’t actually what she remembered.  They didn’t allow you to go back and take a better route or live a different life.  They simply asked you to make a choice, turn the page, and discover the consequences of that choice.

Much the same as real life, I guess.

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[i] The Independent, Tuesday 17 February, 2004.