Nothing could have been different

If it could have been different, it already would have been.

It took me years to understand this and it changed my entire relationship with the past.

We're all doing our best

Sometimes our best is terrible. Sometimes it's excellent. But it's always our best.

Whether we're trying to survive, trying to protect the ego at all costs, or trying whatever else. In each moment, we're doing the best we can in that moment.

That includes the decisions I now regret.

The version who decided

The person who made that decision wasn't me as I am today.

It was my version from back then, with everything she was. And not only what she knew: everything she was. The traumas, the life history, the DNA, the emotions, the wants, all of it.

With all of that on the table, she made the best decision she could.

So it couldn't have been different. If it had been different, it wouldn't have been me. It would have been some other version, but not the one who was there living it.

What guilt does

And this is where it stops being consolation and becomes practical.

Time spent in regret and guilt is more of the same. It's an excuse not to move forward. It's staying stuck to an older version of myself.

It's self-sabotage, and the longer it goes on, the bigger the snowball gets.

Staying loyal to things that have already happened, to older versions of me or to people who have gone, only keeps me in the same place. And the hole keeps getting deeper.

Backwards, only peace

The only thing I can have an impact on is forwards.

Backwards I can make peace. I can't change it.

Forwards I can change.

And the way out of this is to choose myself a little every day, knowing that my head sometimes knows what would be better and that it won't always manage to act accordingly.

A little every day. Some days go backwards. And some days go forwards.