There was a commercial that was running recently pitching “non-monetary value” coins.  The coins were some kind of commemorative items – frankly I really don’t remember much about the coins.  A line in that commercial, though, caught my ear.  In trying to get viewers to act quickly, the voiceover said, “Avoid future regret.”

That line got me thinking about regret and doing things in the present to avoid regret in the future.

I think many people have regrets about things they did or didn’t do in the past.  The goal for building your happiness power is to not let those regrets diminish your happiness in the present or future.  Most of us probably have things we would have done differently.  But we have to realize that in the present we can’t do anything to change what happened in the past.

The only thing you can do with those regrets is to learn from them and to avoid future regret that might come from making the same mistakes.

When you’re presented with a choice, ask yourself if you would have regrets in the future about the choice you made.  Sometimes you have no way of knowing if you’ll regret your decision later on.  But other times, you have a gut feeling that the choice you’re about to make is something you’ll regret in the future.  In those cases, avoid future regret and make a different choice.

To your happiness!