Regrets
I don’t typically dwell on any regrets, but there are a couple that have been nagging at me recently. When I think about regrets, I not talking about those whimsical high school regrets, like I should have asked that girl out, or I should tried out for the school play. Nor am I talking about those would’ve/should’ve’s like I should have bought Google when they IPO’d. I’m talking about decisions I made that have fundamentally affected my family and continue to do so.
I think it is the “continue to do so” aspect that is what is causing me to dwell on these regrets. Typically, when I make a mistake, I first admit that I made a mistake and then try to determine what caused it. Often, I actually made the best decision I could with the information I had, I just needed more or better information. Sometimes it was the case where I should have dug deeper, but it could also have been that I didn’t know that I needed some other information. I learn from these mistakes and move on (no regrets). Some people may wonder how I can just move on. I believe it is my faith in God that allows me to do this so easily. He has forgiven me for my mistakes, so I am be able to forgive myself.
So what are these regrets, well the first is staying in our townhouse for too long. We should have moved to a single family home as soon as we could have, or waited a little longer until we could afford one. Why do I dwell on this, because it continues to come up in the context of where we will send Emi to school. Did we make the best decision we could, well we weren’t sure if we were going to have children, and we really liked our neighborhood. I just don’t think we thought enough about the growth of our family, even if we had weren’t able to have children.
The other regret that nags at me is leaving Adobe. I know that this decision was sound at the time. It was one of the harshest work environments I’ve worked in. I was working 80 hour weeks for nearly 6 months, more hours than I’ve put in at any startup. They were also paying me at about 30% below market. Previously my regret had been that I should have left sooner and tried to go to one of the hot companies at the time like Yahoo or Netscape. Now, I wonder if I should have stayed and just accumulated the stock options and benefits. Once again, this comes up in the context of where we will send Emi to school.
So what do I do about these regrets? Nothing really. I just finished reading Assassin’s Quest and it reminded me about what I should do. Fitz, the main character was given a horrible game situation and he had to figure out how to win the game in one move. At first he moaned and complained about how the game could have gotten to this sorry state, but he finally solved the problem. What I need to do is understand where our family is today, and figure out the best way to get Emi the best education we can.
Comments are closed.
Subscribe via RSS