Dumb Little Man - Seven Questions That Will Prevent Regret

Alex Shalman offers this guest post over at the always cool Dumb Little Man blog.

Seven Questions That Will Prevent Regret

Written on 9/26/2008 by Alex Shalman. Alex is an avid reader and is constantly learning how to improve his life. You can catch him at Practical Personal Development .

Photo Credit: superfem

One of the most fundamental and most difficult things that many of us have to do is to make a decision. It only takes a yes, or a no, to change the entire course of our lives. I've recently had to make a decision that put my relationship with my family, my girlfriend, and myself on the line -- there were some questions I had to ask myself.

"I would much rather have regrets about not doing what people said, than regretting not doing what my heart led me to and wondering what life had been like if I'd just been myself." ~Brittany Renée

I recently made a decision to move to Israel for a year of learning about Judaism. My family is not very religious, and you can say they're 'afraid' that I will be. Their fears aren't rational, but they're real, so their consequences on their emotions and stress levels are real as well.

They used a few justifications as to why I should stay:

• I won't be able to get to Dental School interviews from over there.
  
• My girlfriend won't wait 9 months, and won't like the new me.
  
• They assume I will completely change, and not be myself after the trip.
  
• I'm upsetting my parents too much.
  

As you can tell, these fears are in my life as challenges so that I can over come them and be stronger than I was before. As Brittany Renée says, I'd rather follow my heart than someone else's. Despite that quote, I'd still rather not live my life with regret and so I used a little exercise that helps me to eliminate all thoughts of regret from my life.

Go read the rest of the post to get the seven questions.

Tags: Dumb Little Man, Seven Questions, Prevent Regret, personal growth, self exploration, life