Do not regret opportunity lost. Do not let any opportunity pass you by now. Grab opportunity when it comes, and you will have no regrets. The thing is: you don’t always recognize opportunity when you see it.
It may look like too much trouble. Only later you realize the opportunity you missed.
It’s okay. Look at it this way: When you rue opportunity lost, it helps you to realize all the opportunity that life gives you. Consider that perhaps you simply can’t avail yourself of all that life so generously offers you. You can’t star in two movies all at once. Don’t plague yourself about opportunity missed. Better to shrug your shoulders and move on and know that opportunity is always knocking at your door. Sometimes the knock is quiet, yet still you can hear it. Beloveds, opportunity really comes from within you. It resounds within you. You call it to you.
Consider that the path you took, if even by default, was a good path. I won’t say “the right path” because there can be more than one right path. There can be many. The notion that there was only one path for you is an indication of your pursuit of perfection, and you well know, you are hard to please. So long as your ego is intact, you will pursue relative perfection, and you will not find it. You don’t have to catch everything you’re after, and you don’t have to beat yourself up about it either.
Ego is a false prophet that builds you up. It also makes you small. It makes you perceive yourself as small. It makes you perceive yourself as lacking. If you knew the depth and breadth of who you are, ego wouldn’t stand a chance.
Consider then that the path you are on is perfect. You can take a different path tomorrow. The one you are on now is still perfect. And the one you take tomorrow – that’s perfect too. They are both perfectly all right. All paths lead to Me. One way or another, they do.
Move forward and let go of the past. Let this be your motto. Let go of the past you see as regrettable, and also let go of the past that you long to bring back. You can’t look back and see where you’re going at the same time. There is much wonder waiting for you around the next corner, and know that you are already there.
If you did miss out on something, have the idea that this glorious world will provide you with what you missed another way, another time. If not precisely, perhaps it will help you acknowledge that you were able to skip a step. Is that to regret, that you didn’t have to have it, this that you are aching for?
I have suggested before that you learn to shrug your shoulders and say, “It’s all right.” Not to be cavalier, not to be dismissive of yourself or anyone, but to be caring and say to yourself:
“It’s all right. What is the big deal? Why do I hurt my heart with regret now? Later I will regret that my heart is pained. Now I will say, ‘Why did I do that? Why did I spend those moments in life regretting?’ I realize now that regret is regrettable. My life is my good fortune, and I will recognize it as such. No more woe and wailing from me. I am indeed on a new path, for I have left the path of the past and have taken a new path of no regrets. Now I sail on the High Seas.”