A shortcut to a better life

Dropping your "if only" thoughts

A shortcut to a better life

Would you like to know a quick way to improve the quality of your life? Just drop all the “if only” thoughts that cross your mind.

Let me explain.

A well-to-do, but not wealthy, friend told me about a wonderful opportunity he missed a few years ago. It went something like this. He was invited to participate in a once-in-a-lifetime investment opportunity open only to a select few. He was invited to this meeting only because he knew the opportunity’s sponsor. (This was before the time of online meetings; he had to go to a different city to participate in a face-to-face meeting.) He had the option of going a day earlier or arriving on the day of the meeting, and he decided to take the flight on the day of the meeting. If everything had gone right, he would have arrived an hour before the meeting. Unfortunately, the flight he was about to take developed a mechanical problem at the last minute, and it was cancelled. No other flight would get him to the meeting on time. So he went home and didn’t think much of it.

A few months later, he learned that his missed investment opportunity was so exceptional that everyone who invested in it became multimillionaires. He concluded his narrative by saying that his life would have been so different if only he had taken the earlier flight.

“If only I had taken the earlier flight…”

I don’t meet him often, but when I do, he generally brings up this story and imagines (and wants me to imagine) how wonderful it would have been “if only” he had taken an earlier flight all those years ago.

There is nothing unusual about my friend. We all act this way in our daily lives. No matter who we are, we all have similar thoughts. If we examined our thoughts, we would see many of them are of the type,

“If only I had accepted the other job...”

“If only I had married the other person...”

“If only I had started investing earlier…”

“If only my father hadn’t been so harsh…”

Such “if only” thoughts can take different disguises. For example, here are some variations of “if only” thoughts:

“I should have accepted other job offer.”

“It is stupid of me not to have taken the other job.”

“I regret not taking the other job.”

“What was I thinking when I turned down the other job?”

This way of thinking is not uncommon. We talk to others this way. When we do, they immediately jump in and support our thoughts, especially if they are our friends. Some may disagree with us, but no one will likely say we are talking nonsense. Yet, such thoughts are nonsensical and impede a happy, fulfilled life. How so? Let’s look at some of the reasons.

What’s wrong with the “if only” thoughts?

Although we may think that the “if only” thoughts are harmless, they hold us back in many ways. They interfere with our happiness and prevent us from moving forward with our lives. Here is how:

1. Planting our feet firmly in the past

For starters, “if only” thoughts firmly plant our feet in the past so we can’t move forward easily. These thoughts assume that we could somehow change the past. It is obvious that it is too late for my friend to have taken an earlier flight. To say, “If only I had taken an earlier flight,” is nonsensical and meaningless. We cannot travel back to the past. Our missed flights will remain missed flights forever. There’s no way to change that. The time you spend regretting the past comes from the time you could spend building your future.

You look at the past and think about what you lost instead of looking ahead and seeing what you can achieve. - Seneca, Moral Letters, 104

You can avoid living in the past by realizing that you can live only in the present.

Forget everything else. Keep hold of this alone and remember it: Each of us lives only now, this brief instant. The rest has been lived already or is impossible to see. - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 3.10

We can only live in the present, this brief moment. Yet our “if only” thinking pretends we could somehow change our past. This is illogical and absurd. We cannot move forward when mentally trying to move backward in time.

2. Trying to control the things that we cannot

One of the most unproductive things we can do is try to control what we cannot. We know this to be true but fail to apply this principle consistently.

Do not waste your time on what you cannot control or influence. - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.49

Whatever happened in the past—whether it was missing a bus two minutes ago or being involved in an accident twenty years ago—cannot be changed now. It is not under our control. Trying to control what cannot be controlled can only result in regret, self-pity, anger, or bitterness. It cannot change the past. Why waste our time going over things we cannot control instead of spending it on things we can?

3. Trying to live backwards

When you say “if only,” it is based on your current knowledge. When my friend felt that “if only” he had taken the flight a day earlier, he would be financially independent now, he was applying his current knowledge to the past. If he had taken the earlier flight and had taken advantage of the opportunity, it is quite possible that it could have gone sour, making him lose his money. It could have worked against him. In this case, he would have probably said, “if only”, I had not gone there, I would be much better off now. Everyone would have invested in Apple if they had known that a modest investment some 30 years ago would have made them rich. But there was no way of knowing that for sure. That’s the meaninglessness of the “if only” thinking—pretending that we could apply our current wisdom to things things in the past.

Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards - Soren Kierkegaard

4. Thinking you had a choice when you had none

If you say, “If only I had done that,” the question is, “Why didn’t you?” You did what you did because, given the circumstances, that’s the best you could have done. If you could have done otherwise, you would have. When my friend decided to go on the day of the meeting, he did so because (1) he didn’t want to waste his time taking an earlier flight; (2) he could not have known that his plane would be subject to mechanical problems; and (3) he could not have known the investment would be exceptional. Given all this, his only logical choice at that time was to take the flight he did. At any time, we can only act on the information we have, taking our temperament into account.

When we have an impulse to do something, it is because we feel it is to our advantage. It is impossible to consider something is to our advantage and do something else. Or consider something right and have an urge to do something else. - Epictetus, Discourses, 1.18

No matter what we do, we only try to do our best given our knowledge and mental state while acting. We had no choice. We could not have done anything else at that time. Our only choice is to behave differently in the future if we choose to do so.

Try this simple exercise

Clearly, “if only” thinking is irrational and interferes with our ability to live effectively. The first step in getting rid of “if only” thinking is to become aware of it. Scan your mind and identify your “if only” thinking. It comes in many disguises. Here are some examples:

The many disguises of “if only” thinking

“I should have done that,” or “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Why did I do that?” or “Why didn’t I do that?”

“It was stupid of me to have done that,” or “It is stupid of me not to have done that.”

“It would have been better if I had done that,” or “It would have been better if I had not done that.”

“What was I thinking when I did that?” or “What was I thinking when I didn’t do that?”

When you identify a few of such “if only” thoughts, look at them closely and see how irrational those thoughts are and how they disturb the tranquillity of your mind. Let go of those thoughts because they serve no purpose.

HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF STOICISM—AND AVOID “IF ONLY” THOUGHTS IN THE FUTURE

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