Past Regret: But Was It Wasted Time?

Personal DevelopmentBoundaries & Self Trust

Oct 7

woman on beach reflective moment past regret

As the piano played in my headphones, my pen was furiously scratching across the page, and what I was writing was: I forgive you.

I forgive you for bad decisions. I forgive you for drinking too much. I forgive you for using food as a coping mechanism. I forgive you for not always being your best.

And the big one: I forgive you for wasted time.

As soon as I finished that sentence, I wrote, But was it wasted?

And that is the big question.

Do the choices we regret now mean the years we spent making them were wasted?

I was thinking about the years I drank too much, partied, didn’t study the way I probably should have, cared about things that now seem pretty superficial, and spent far too much time feeling insecure and unsure of myself. I thought about the ways I held myself back, played small, and took the easier road because I was scared or because I didn’t trust myself enough to do something different.

I realized I had been lumping a whole lot of my life into one pretty harsh category. Yes, there were choices I regret. Yes, there are things I wish I had done differently. But was all of that time really wasted, or is that just the way I judge it now?

Was It Really Wasted?

After years of life experience, after working on myself, gaining confidence, perspective, and a much better understanding of what was really going on underneath a lot of those choices I don’t think the time was wasted. The girl I was then didn’t have the knowledge, the life experience or even the resources I have today.

I was just trying to figure things out, trying to fit in, trying to feel comfortable in my own skin. Sometimes I drank. Sometimes I ate. Sometimes I distracted myself. Sometimes I focused on things that didn’t really matter because I didn’t know better or if I did know better I didn’t want to accept what was in front of me.

It’s much easier to see the situation, and the reasons behind the choices I made, now that I am outside of it. We often can’t see the patterns we have created to cope when we are smack dab in the middle of them.

Maybe some of the choices were bad choices, or at least not the most productive ones, but does knowing better now mean I should judge myself for not knowing better then?

What I Couldn’t See Then

I don’t think so, judgement of ourselves or others never amounts to anything positive. When I look back now, I can see that what may appear as bad choices or even ignorance was actually a time of growth and learning. I wasn’t doing nothing during those years.

I was watching people. Learning how they behaved, what they said, what they didn’t say, and how often the outside presentation had very little to do with what was really going on underneath. I was learning about myself too, even if I didn’t know that was what I was doing at the time.

I think that is part of why I can usually sense when someone is struggling, even when she looks like she has it all together. I know what it feels like to appear fine and still feel lost, insecure or unhappy underneath. I know what it feels like to want people to think everything is okay because you don’t quite know how to explain that it isn’t.

What Those Years Gave Me

What I gained during those years, and through the time I’ve spent understanding my earlier choices, is a level of empathy I’m not sure I would have otherwise. What I lived through has made me more comfortable talking about deep feelings, emotions and struggles that other people sometimes shy away from. It also helped me understand that what someone is showing you is not always the whole story.

I also started to understand something else about those years. I was trying very hard to be who I thought I was supposed to be, while at the same time feeling uncomfortable, insecure and pretty unhappy underneath it all.

That disconnect mattered.

When you are trying to fit into a life that does not feel entirely like your own, but you don’t yet have the confidence or self-awareness to understand why, you find ways to cope. Mine were not always in my best interest. Drinking, partying, distracting myself, focusing on things that didn’t really matter, all of it gave me somewhere to put the discomfort without having to look too closely at what was causing it.

At the time, I didn’t have the language to say, something about this isn’t working for me. I just knew I didn’t feel good in my own skin.

It took me a long time to understand that doing what is expected of you is not the same as doing what feels true for you. And when you spend enough time looking outside yourself for the answer to how you should live, it becomes very easy to lose touch with what you actually want.

Looking back, I can see that some of what I once called wasted time was really time spent trying to find my way back to myself.

There is something about reaching this point in life that gives you enough distance to look back and see earlier versions of yourself differently. Not necessarily more favorably, but with more context.

I can admit that some of my choices were not good for me. I can wish I had asked for help sooner, trusted myself more, studied harder, drank less, or stopped trying so hard to fit into a version of life that didn’t feel right.

I can regret those things without turning the whole period into a failure.

Regret Is Not the Same as Wasted

Calling the time wasted starts to feel a little too simple.

It leaves out the fact that I was struggling. It leaves out what I was learning, even when I didn’t know I was learning it. It leaves out the person I was becoming through all of it.

That doesn’t mean I have to romanticize those years or decide I’m grateful for every hard thing that happened. I’m not. There are still pieces I would change if I could.

But wishing something had been different and deciding it was worthless are not the same thing.

Some of the choices were mistakes. Some of the years were harder than they needed to be. Some of the time was spent hiding or coping instead of really living.

But I was still there. Still learning. Still becoming. Still trying to find my way. And I’m not sure I want to call that wasted time anymore.

What I’m learning is that I don’t need to keep judging the past in order to prove that I have grown.

I can see where I was scared, where I was hiding, where I made choices that were not good for me, and where I stayed disconnected from myself longer than I wish I had. I can also see that I was doing the best I knew how to do at the time.

That does not erase regret. It doesn’t make every choice okay. It doesn’t mean I would make the same decisions again.

It just means I don’t have to keep using the person I am now as evidence against the person I was then.

I’m still learning. I’m still growing. I still catch myself playing small sometimes, questioning myself, or looking outside myself for answers I probably already know.

So who am I to expect the girl I was then to have had it all figured out?

Maybe the point is not to decide whether every year was good or bad, productive or wasted. Maybe the point is to let it be part of the story without continuing to punish myself for how I lived it.

We can wish parts of our life had been different.

We can learn from it.

We can forgive ourselves.

And maybe that is enough.

“Less Noise. More You.”

— Sandra Daniele

A gentle note from me

Everything I share here comes from my own lived experience and the work I am actively doing in my own life. This space is for reflection, encouragement, and gentle practice — it is not therapy, medical advice, or a substitute for professional mental health care. If something in this post lands heavier than you expected, or surfaces something that feels bigger than a tender moment, please reach out to a licensed therapist, counselor, or trusted healthcare provider. Coaching is a beautiful complement to that kind of support, never a replacement for it.

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