Your Life Isn’t a Sliding Doors Moment

One decision doesn’t make or break the future

By the time we reach middle age or even just our thirties, many of us will have had a moment or two that we look back on with regret. Not regret in the sense of “I shouldn’t have done that” but regret in the sense of what might have been.

• I wish I’d asked that person out
• I wish I hadn’t screwed up that interview for my dream job
• I wish I’d studied harder at school
• I wish I’d taken that trip overseas

When life isn’t working out the way we wish it was, we look back on those moments, filled with regret. We lament how much better life would be had they worked out, and we torment ourselves with visions of a grander life than what we’re experiencing right now.

But here’s the thing: it’s all a mirage.

It’s a mirage because, while you might not be satisfied with your life right now, if you’re healthy and have opportunities, then you have everything you need. You’ve got something concrete, something real. You are where you are.

The visions you’re having of your life had that one moment worked out are nothing more than projections of how you think they would’ve turned out, not how they actually would have…

• If you’d asked that girl out, maybe you would’ve gotten married — and it would’ve been awful. Or maybe you would’ve broken up after a week.
• If you’d done really well at that job interview, maybe the boss would’ve been absolutely horrible. Or maybe you would’ve hated it.
• If you’d studied more, maybe you would’ve been accepted to that university, only to have had a drunken accident that left you with a permanent injury. Or maybe you would’ve graduated without incident and had an entirely normal and unexciting career.

The truth is, there are far more consequences to any decision than just the good ones. For every possible upside, there are a hundred downsides that are equally possible — but we never consider them.

We have to stop thinking in binaries

I used to be in the military, and one of the things about being deployed is most younger guys figure either they’ll come home or they won’t. Either way they’re good with that. But in the headiness of youth, they either dismiss or don’t think about the thousands of other possibilities:

• Being maimed by a land mine
• Suffering PTSD
• Having their spouse leave them while they’re deployed
• Not being able to get a job when they discharge

Which probably makes it all the more crushing when one of these things happens, because it violates their binary expectations. The point is, whether you’re in the military or not, we tend to look at these big moments as an either/or proposition — if we make the right choice, then everything works out. And if you don’t, nothing does.

Apart from setting up a false dichotomy, what this does is ignore all the smaller decisions along the way that you got right. The reality is that most of the smaller, good decisions you make you won’t even know about, because your life will improve so slightly that you won’t even realise.

If you’re doing well in life right now, that’s because you’ve likely made hundreds or thousands of good, smaller decisions. That’s what makes a good life, not huge, momentous decisions or moments like the movies seem to enjoy showing us.

Short of taking part in an armed robbery or getting into a drunken brawl at a bar, almost no decision can entirely ruin your life.

I blew my shot at my dream job…and my life is great

For many years, I hated myself for it. Life got a hell of a lot harder after that happened for a bunch of reasons, and for the better part of a decade I tortured myself for screwing up the opportunity of a lifetime. If you told me back then the broad strokes of where I’m at now, I would’ve been bitterly disappointed.

But now? I’m glad.

I’m glad I didn’t get that job. See, the years after blowing the opportunity, I learned a lot. About myself, about life. Everything I went through and learned allowed me to build the life I have now and the chance to continue that into the future.

That dream job? Sure, there’s a chance that it would’ve been great, but every chance it wouldn’t have. More importantly, there’s every chance I wouldn’t have done the internal work to be in the position of gratitude and happiness I’m in now.

So should I just say “fuck it” and hope for the best then?

Of course not. That’s not remotely what I’m saying. What I’m saying is, make the best decisions you can. Try the best you can. But after that?

Let go of the outcome.

We live in a world of infinite possibilities, and we have only the tiniest slivers of information to make decisions. So make them as best you can. Think about the future. Trust your instincts and listen to your conscience. That’s the best you’re ever going to do.

After that, it’s up to God, the universe, whatever you want to call it.

And to finish off. If you’re one of those people who tortures themselves over past decisions, remember, you don’t know that everything would’ve worked out had you made the “right” decision. You only know that it was probably the better choice at the time.

For all you know, you did make the better choice.

So stop beating yourself up, thinking that everything would’ve been beer and skittles if you’d just done xyz. Let go of it, and try to be better in the future. That’s really all you can do.