Spending your time imagining what would have been if you could have changed some little thing, some little decision in your life, is counterproductive and leaves you unhappy. Think about how you can improve for the future, but don't waste your present thinking about how you could have changed the past.
We could trace our current position to every decision we have ever made. Where you sat in kindergarten influenced who your friends were, which influenced what your interests were,
which influenced how you did in school, and so forth. We could ponder these things endlessly, but it wouldn't get us anywhere. Take a wrong turn on your way somewhere, and it won't pay to pull over and question why or how you took the wrong turn. What you need to do is think about how you can get from where you are to where you want to be.
The same applies to your life: don't wallow in disappointment over how you got to where you are. Think about what you need to do to get where you want to be.
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Research on athletes who came close but lost in Olympic finals finds that those who spend the least time on counterfactual thought—thinking about how things might have ended differently— are the most satisfied with their experience.Gilovich and Medvec 1995
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