Woulda, Shoulda, Coulda

By BEN OLSON/for The Herald  —  “I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody.” Terry Malloy, played by Marlin Brando in the 1954 movie, “A Streetcar Named Desire.”

“I’m saying you’ve already done plenty of things to regret, you just don’t know what they are. It’s when you discover them, when you see the folly in something you’ve done, and you wish that you had it to do over, but you know you can’t, because it’s too late.” Phil Cooper, played by Danny DeVito in the 1999 movie “The Big Kahuna.”

“Regret for things we did can be tempered by time. It is regret for things we did not do that is inconsolable.” Sydney J. Harris, Chicago Sun Times columnist.

I’ve made a lot of bad choices in my life. So have you. Some bad choices carry harsh consequences that will follow you for the rest of your days. It is to be expected that you could feel regret for those choices. Most bad decisions, however, give you an opportunity to learn something and become a little smarter going forward. I have made it a habit not to beat myself up about poor choices I’ve made. Why make things any worse? I just look forward, with this new bit of wisdom that I’ve gained.

It is harder, though, to look back at chances that you passed up that never will be presented to you again. A college major you changed because you didn’t want to take a class with that demanding math professor. A good job that you didn’t take because they wanted you to relocate. A girlfriend you broke up with because she was ready to get married and have kids and you weren’t. The list is endless, and it’s different for each and everyone of us. The forks in the road appear all the time.

Choices I made 50 years ago made it possible to meet my wife many years later. Call it fate or God’s will or luck of the draw. We are all where we are because of choices we made. Some choices require deliberation, others are made with hardly any thought at all. Often, not making a choice turns out to be a choice in itself. We never know ahead of time which will be life altering. It’s probably just as well so that we can live our lives with a bit of optimism.

Next time that you regret that you chose to cross the tracks at Fish Hatchery Road and had to wait for the train, relax. Perhaps it kept you from being involved in a wreck out on the highway, had you been there a couple minutes earlier. There have been countless books written about the subject of fate. There are even religions that help people accept and embrace the randomness of life. It could be reassuring to many people that they’ll be reincarnated back here to try and get it right next time. Perhaps this was too weighty of a subject to tackle in a newspaper column. My job is to attempt to entertain or edify, and occasionally a side effect is to get people thinking about things.

A last word on regret comes from The Chairman of the Board, Frank Sinatra. By almost anyone’s standards, Frank led a charmed life. Paul Anka wrote the words to “My Way”, which became Sinatra’s signature song when it was released in 1969. “Regrets, I’ve a few, but then again, too few to mention.” Most of us wish that we could sing those words and really mean it. I regret to tell you that that is all I’m going to say on this subject.