Hi friends, while it’s a given that nobody wants to live a life of regret, but we all regret at times, no matter how much we all like to say the line “I have no regrets!” or “I never regret whatsoever!”. We don’t keep regretting for long, but the fact that we do for a bit holds almost true most of the times for everyone around us including us. The duration of regret is what varies or in other words how fast we let go that painful thought and move on to the next train of things to do or things to think determines how long we regret about something.

While, our initial conversation here is revolving around regret, you certainly won’t regret reading this article further. What I am trying to arrive at is that not everything we do makes us regret but there are certain things that do make us regret and one of them is a compromise that doesn’t go right. Compromises are often the best way forward in times of road blocks, relational difficulties, establishment of understanding or even adapting to the journey individually to tune our minds to what’s around us. When we are low on budget but used to living with a car, we travel by metro/bus/by car pooling for a while is a perfect example of having to compromise for the good until you get your money right.

While, everything that we do is a way of life unique to us and the adage is so true that “to each his own!” but there is still enough scope to establish a common ground of a few things that none of must compromise or else we are sure to regret ahead.

Here are the 5 things that I could think of that would certainly make us regret if we ever had to compromise on them:

1. Self Time:

Time for self is something I am a big believer of and shall put it second to nothing. Nobody in this world was born, not alone; all of us entered here alone and shall leave this world alone (even if you were to be unfortunate to exit this planet in a plane crash thinking that you have many others leaving with you, bad news is that you still are going alone). So, it’s pivotal for to know and understand that giving this very person (self) the deserved time, every single day, is almost a compulsory course that you cannot miss just the way you eat, drink water, brush or bath every single day. (some of you might argue that you know of people who don’t bath every day and I promise you will know of people around them who complain about their bad habit too. By the way, if you know them it’s time you correct them and not let them volunteer longer for the cause of saving water on this planet by not taking bath, there are more ways to save water (sujit lalwani smiles :)).

If you do not give yourself the much needed time everyday to evaluate yourself for the day, think of your right and wrong doings, how you could improve them, or just stay silent and lost into the beauty of nature then you are surely going to regret in your life for all the strength that you didn’t gather that was always inside of you, so much you couldn’t do, so much you didn’t learn and how absolutely unaware you are about yourself. You shall find yourself topping your performances at work or education or anything else you take up, but when it comes to taking control of your responses/reactions you shall perform lower than your lowest performances. A perfect invitation to regret is not giving yourself some time every single day and compromising it because you have more than perfect looking excuses.

2. Daily Self Development:

One of the things you can’t get too busy in your life for is your own daily improvement. the world today is changing so fast that the need for this is larger than ever, but I see tonnes of people who complain of being busy to be able to attend to this. I tell them - add this to your list of being busy for and you will never regret having done that.

If you don’t have this on your list, sooner or later your achievements and accomplishments will start looking smaller to your full potential very obviously and you will know that you are far far away from the goals you once thought were very clearly yours and often get found uttering “what went wrong?” “this must be the fate!” “why do bad things happen to good people?” “I gave my best!” “I wish universe was fair to me!” “life is unfair” and so on. Simply give some time to yourself every single day to improve, learn, grow, explore, develop and I assure you, you shall never regret whatsoever. If you compromised on this one, I assure you that this is an invitation coupled with extra gifts to invite regret of highest kinds into your later years of life.

3. Travel & Adventure:

You are here only once and if you didn’t travel the world to experience it LIVE you have missed much of the experiences life was wanting to offer you and your family. Leaving this world without the amount of travel and adventure you can be a part of is like having wasted your days here living in a part of the earth like there were cages that you couldn’t have come out of and universe had a constitution that didn’t permit free travel for some souls like yours. Quite a few people fear adventure and I am one of them too, but honestly not living it is something I have never been able to convince myself of.

I involve in activities occasionally on every travel of mine, not necessarily a bungee jump or a sky dive or river rafting, but something that gives a kick of adrenaline and then lets me know I am alive for reasons more than I understand thus far. You think you need a lot of budget for all this, you are partly right but you must know it needs a bigger budget in kind - that’s your energy, enthusiasm for life and spirit of adventure. Build that to invest it on travel and adventure. Earn to explore and travel and travel to freak out and give a kick of adrenaline to yourself. (safety, precautions, responsibility towards self and others involved on travel is often assumed and here advised!). Not having travelled enough is a sure shot invitation to regret that shall travel with you for rest of life until you decide to start travelling and not being capable of adventure is the sign of an age passed. Don’t! Just Start NOW!

4. Family Time:

You are here because someone cared to grow their family and you are reading this because someone took care of you to get till here to be able to read this, either on your mobile or laptop (or gadgets I don’t know of that you might be using to read this :)). You have been loved, cared for, given enough and done enough for, that when your turn arrives and you are out building your career don’t forget to keep enough time and resources to give time to your family, loved ones and those you care for. Your parents, your siblings, your grandparents, wife, kids, in laws or those to be, deserve your time very much not as a reward but as a given.

The strength that a family can produce in bad times is known when times go bad but you fall hollow, shattered and into deep shackles of regret if you until then thought you could postpone giving time to your family and someday you would have enough of it all to give it away and now you are at a point where you are broken and none to stand by you to just say “You are an idiot! But our favorite! We love you as you are and we know you will change the world but time for a treat now for goofing up everything!” (I know this is ideal person from a family talking but for all cases here it’s good to assume such an ideal state of family if that motivates you to give them time today! :) (sujit lalwani smiles again!)

5. Have Fun:

Tell me that you want to 'seriously' work towards your goal & not have fun at all & I will tell you your goals are never going to meet you in joy (mostly never meet you at all, am saying 'mostly' to ensure I am letting the exceptions aside, of people who just don't want to have fun ever & probably even spoil the possible fun others around then might have (stop thinking about them :)[Sujit Lalwani can't stop smiling at this one!])). You can be serious & that's no clause to not having fun in life. No matter how large your goals are, you can still have enough fun on the way. It makes your journey lighter, merrier & smoother, just like this article (can you believe you finished reading a 1000+ words already?).

Hit a spa occasionally, travel to beaches, sit lazily listening to music on your terrace, walk down the streets aimlessly, easy at random places, hit restaurants you have never been to, go on long drives/rides as though the farthest you could go was going to get you closest to your satisfaction, commit to night outs at your friends place, fall in love, experience exotic romantic getaways, watch the sunset like that was your last day of life, sip an extra coffee at the table, paint your wall, cut the sleeves off your shirts & design your own sleeveless, wear odd colors, don't bother putting your hair together, watch movies, don't give up on PlayStation, let the charge finish before you finish playing games, chat long hours & don't make sense whatsoever, travel randomly, scare the hell out of people for a prank, play the games you love even if they are old fashioned, spend more than you earnt in a week (sometimes), be a rebel ('just because' sometimes), throw a surprise visit to your friends, kiss someone you hate, send a love letter to a random address, meet me & talk for hours over a coffee & so much more! You don't do this bit of having fun & take my word your life is in chronic state of regret. Don't compromise on having fun ever, even when they all like to call you a grown up. I believe I could compile a list of few more very important things, that I believe, if you did compromise, you surely would regret, and, writing them all myself here compromising reading from you, is surly one of them!

So, I invite you to contribute in the comments column here the things you think one must never compromise else he/she is bound to regret deeply! (Sujit Lalwani shall surely smile next when you hit a comment right here with your thoughts/views. Currently he is smiling though :))