By Nury Vittachi
Psychologists say that if you have a regret involving another person, you should talk to him/her as soon as possible
Tip: If you ever need to cheer yourself up, just go to Google and type: “[Your Name] is the koolist guy on urth”. Google, the biggest computer brain on the planet, will instantly tell you that it reckons that surely the correct phrase is: “[Your Name] is the coolest guy on earth.”
Okay, well, if you insist, thanks, Google! This lifts your spirits mightily, as long as you’re an easily pleased person. As a semi-sophisticated individual, I try to limit myself to doing this only 50 or 60 times a day.
But the truth is even the most successful people have regrets. Evidence comes in the shape of a news report a reader sent to me about a monarch who has ruled for 20 years but recently told his shocked populace: “I miss being an accountant.”
Oba Ajibade Bakare-Agoro of Nigeria ascended to the throne of his region in 1993 with the royal title Ranodu of Imota. But he badly misses his old job shuffling papers in an office, he told a stunned reporter at the Sun newspaper of Nigeria. “I miss not being able to audit account books of companies and firms,” he said, admitting that he sneaks off to his old office to stare regretfully at piles of receipts.
By coincidence, an interviewer asked this writer a related question: What is your biggest regret? I told him these were my top three: 1) Not being Johnny Depp; 2) Fifty to 70 percent of the things I say or write every week; and 3) Not being Taylor Swift’s “partner-for-life” this week.
Psychologists say that if you have a regret involving another person, you should talk to him/her as soon as possible. True. Here’s a line that works for me: “I totally regret the things I said to you last night. I came up with a much more caustic list of scornful put-downs during the night.”
The most sure-fire cure for feeling low-spirited is to look up tattoo pictures on the internet and count how many people have invested money and pain in having “no ragrets” (sic) or “no regerts” (sic) or “no regets” tattooed permanently on their bodies. This never fails to cheer me up.
And, Ajibade Bakare-Agoro, if none of the above helps, I suggest you get some wisdom from the Holy Scriptures: “Regrets. I’ve had a few. But then again, too few to mention.” No, wait, that’s a song lyric. You can tell because it flows nicely but means nothing.
This columnist canvassed regular contributors to come up with some good advice concerning regrets in the modern era and they produced these three maxims.
1) Never waste time brooding over mistakes you have made. Just blame someone else and move on.
2) If you’re doing something that you realize you will regret in the morning, make a decision now to sleep past noon.
3) Don’t dwell on your past failures as you’ll surely make worse ones in future.
Now, if you regret wasting precious minutes of your life reading this column, don’t be. It was written by the coolest guy on earth. Google says so, or will do in a minute.
