Life is an accumulation of choices. Every single decision, be it big or small, has the ability to change the course of our lives forever. Sometimes, the smallest choices make the biggest impact. It’s scary that we cant always predict how our life will turn out, even though we do everything in our power to make it right.

Recently, I read ‘The midnight library’ by Matt Haig, which reframed my perspectives on life. This dystopian novel explores a world where one gets to visit this library — a portal between life and death, where each book in the library shows you the different lives you could have lived if you had made different choices. The protagonist, Nora, spent her whole life regretting the decisions she made, which ultimately led her to take her own life. She hence ends up at this library, where she is given a chance to experience her supposed dream lives. However, she ended up back at the library each time, never being satisfied with any of it, proving that her prior regrets paralysed her and made her believe that she had no other way out.

It is easy to dream of the other paths that you could have taken, and wallow in self-pity. It is easy to wish we tried harder, made more friends in school, didn’t make the same mistakes, exercised more…theres about a million things we could have done.

Regret is an all-consuming, powerful force that is capable of eating us alive if we let it fester. The only thing we can do is to continue moving forward instead of burying ourselves in self-pity and what-ifs.

Unless you can change something right now, there is no point mourning the things you didnt do.

“We cant tell if any of those other versions would have been better or worse… but you are happening as well, and that is the happening we have to focus on.”

This book taught me to be confident in my choices and have faith that things will work out. Even if I did make the wrong choices, there’s always a way to rectify them and get on the right path again.

As long as we have air in our lungs and we live to see the sun rise again, theres always a way to change the course of our lives. It is never the end until we decide it is.