If

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I’m someone who tends to reflect and reminisce on the past a lot.

Sometimes I feel like I live in it.

Ironically, I always think of the future when I’m stuck in the past.

What if I went for that project?

What if I were a little braver?

What if I were a little cautious?

What if…?

It’s difficult to look forward to what’s coming sometimes when you’re so bogged down by the past. Finding things to be excited about is a lot harder than brooding on things that you could have done better.

As a bit of a perfectionist at times, I can get obsessed with thinking on what could be better, what I could have done better. This extends to so many things in my life, sometimes down to how I could have approached conversations.

When I played video games / sports competitively, I would always reflect on what made me lose a round, or a game. “If I had only played for the win in this round, we could have won.”, “If I had communicated better with my team, maybe we could have been a bit more aware of what was going to happen.”, “If I were more composed in this situation, maybe I would have scored.”

When I reflect on relationships, it’s the same thing. “What if I were more aware of their situation?”, “What if I was more patient with them?” or, “What if I didn’t give them so many chances?”

When I think about my professional life, it gets worse. “What if I had applied to internships earlier?”, “What if I studied harder?” (this one is really big and I get stuck on that more times than I can remember), “What if I were more confident in myself?”

There’s a specific word that’s common in all of these thoughts: “If”.

“If” is such a funny word. It implies all that could or can be, an infinite amount of possibilities. A significantly happier outcome, a significantly sadder ending.

And it’s dangerous.

I get so hung up on the promise of an even better turn of events. Sometimes, when it’s late and I can’t fall asleep and the clock reads 2AM, it gets intoxicating. My dreams often involve better outcomes of events in my life.

If you’ve watched The Odyssey (btw, I already wrote my thoughts on that film if you wanna check that out), if I were to hear the Siren’s song, “If” would definitely be part of it. Those two letters could tell me all the things I wanted to be, all the things I most want is all the things I most can’t have.

I have a lot of regrets in life. Sometimes it feels like my regrets outweigh the choices I consider good. I wasn’t always this pessimistic. Back when I was younger, I was a lot more excited for the future. Maybe that’s because I just hadn’t been alive long enough to mess up so many times lol.

That being said, although I’m naturally predisposed to being a debbie downer, it’s not something I’m keen on staying as. I’ve learned my lesson on that. Honestly, being optimistic (to a reasonable degree, obviously) feels like something of a skill. But one that I’m working on.

Check this out:

Remember when I talked about beating myself up after losing games? Well, I’m confident that if I weren’t such a big dweller on my own mistakes, I would never have reached the highest rank in the game.

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[figcaption: yeah yeah being proud of a video game achievement is so cheesy, but who cares?]

Remember when I talked about wishing I had treated some relationships differently? Well, I’ve still made some really good friends who I talk to regularly. Some of them will be reading this post. All of them provided a lot of happiness in my life.

Honestly, I’m still trying to work on that professional part. But hey, this website I made is pretty cool, right? I bet I could use the lessons I learned (and will learn) from making this website into improving my resume! And I did learn a bit about webdev and frontend design while working on this place. It was actually pretty inspiring and to loop back to my friends, their praise and compliments motivate me a lot to make it even cooler.

Anyway, I wouldn’t have grown into the person I am today if I didn’t reflect on my past mistakes.

(Okay, equating hitting Radiant in Valorant to growing as a person is a bit of a stretch but you get the idea)

Being alone with my thoughts is not easy, but I’m used to it. And it teaches me a lot. When I do it in moderation, I mean.

Gotta get that big data in.

Next time, I’ll do better. Next time, I’ll be more aware. Next time, it won’t happen again.

Of course, it would be a lie if I said I was able to get over my 2AM “If”s by myself. One of the best decisions I’ve made in life is to surround myself with good people who are able to help me. Yeah, yeah, I know I said I have problems I can’t bring up to anyone - but if all of my problems were those kinds of problems I’d be in big trouble. Thankfully, a lot of my problems I’ve been able to overcome - thanks to them. They’ve been there to tell me I made a bad decision, that I misspoke, that I was too harsh. They’ve also been there to celebrate my efforts, to encourage me, even to thank me (which means the most).

It can’t really be overstated how important it is to have people there for you, people to lift you up when you’re feeling down, and people to cheer you on when you’re starting something new. And people to keep your ego in check.

Thanks to them, I’m usually able to get over my late night regrets eventually. And I’m usually able to learn something from them. If I’m lucky, I can even begin to appreciate whatever happened.

If you look at it that way, maybe it’s not such a bad thing to look into the past. There’s something valuable to learn from history. The trick is to do it in moderation.

That’s something I’m trying to work on now. It’s not easy to let go of the past, but it’s important to understand that

You can’t let it control your future.

You can’t let “if” control your future.

Life is full of ups and downs. I was able to build my ups because I fell down so many times. So corny, but it is true.

I’m kinda dumb, so I tend to fall often. I’m sure I’ll keep stumbling my way through, but hey, I’m used to that now. And so far, I’ve always gotten back up somehow.

Let’s try and keep that going =)