Buyers' Remorse

If one aspect of your life could be different, what would you change?

Where you live? What you do? Who you spend your life with? Some of us would turn back the hands of time if we could. Some of us would right past wrongs that we committed. Others would execute justice for wrongs committed against them. Many would change where they live or the jobs they work. Others might even change who they chose as their partners. Most of us would change something.

The truth is we are often dissatisfied with our choices in life. Yet we live with those decisions because doing so is easier than the struggle to change our present and so affect our future.

We suffer from what is sometimes referred to as buyers' remorse. After we buy a car and discover its flaws, we see another automobile and wish we'd bought that one instead. The same can be true with almost anything. We dine out, my wife gets chicken, I get steak; she wants steak. (I never want chicken instead of steak.) I vacation at the beach, I loathe coming home to live in the desert. I see a film that was a good book, but is a waste of good nap time, and I wish I'd spent my money to buy a CD.

It doesn't matter what the scenario, we often regret our decisions, but only after they've cost us more than the amount we paid. And most of the time the amount of our remorse is directly and exponentially proportional to the value of what we lost.

In such circumstances, we always make another choice: suffer or change.

I've decided that I don't want to suffer. I have no desire to allow others to determine what I think or how I live. In the process I've made a few observations about my responsibilities.

1. I'm often concerned with things I can't change.

2. I am responsible only for what I can change.

3. I should do what only I can do.

4. I should not do what someone else should do.

I also discovered an axiom: Don't ask God what to do, do what he asks you to do.

I realized that I've spent too much time fretting over knowing God's will and too little doing his will. I understand that if I'm going to change, I can't afford buyers' remorse.