By Jane Gordon Julien
April 23, 2025
One of my nieces is a Spanish teacher at my old high school. Today, while wandering in the school library, she found my yearbook and then, horror of horrors, sent me a copy of my yearbook photo.
Below the photo she texted “Beauty,” because she is an enormously kind and forgiving human being,
It’s a painful picture. The hair screams for help. The expression is somber. The skin is pasty.
I regret that I didn’t prepare for this photo. A small regret, no doubt.
I have bigger ones, like when my college friend Bob called me from China to tell me there was an editing job for me there. I had just taken a position at a newspaper in the south, and I was worried: would it be unprofessional to quit a month after I’d arrived?
So I said no.
Forty-two years later, I still regret that decision.
I think just about everyone has regrets. Grow older, stack up more of them. In “The Paradox of Choice,” psychologist Barry Schwartz talks about how the multitude of choices our lives give us can lead to anxiety and dissatisfaction. That, inevitably, leads to regret. Lesson here: narrow your choices considerably, and eenie, meenie, minie mo it. There is no right answer. Life will get in the way no matter what.You’ll get married, or you won’t. You’ll have kids. Or you won’t. You’ll take a multitude of jobs, or stay in one. You’ll take piano lessons, or decide against it.
Life is a crapshoot. What you have control of is yourself. And your choices.
Not surprisingly, there’s a website devoted to this. It’s called The Daily Stoic. Subtitle: Stoic wisdom for everyday life.
Stoicism was designed by the ancient Hellenics to help citizens become happier, wiser, and more resilient. They threw in ‘more virtuous’ too. These days, that might be a stretch.
Anyway, here’s what the Daily Stoic says about Stoicism:
“In its rightful place, Stoicism is a tool in the pursuit of self-mastery, perseverance, and wisdom: something one uses to live a great life, rather than some esoteric field of academic inquiry. Certainly, many of history’s great minds not only understood Stoicism for what it truly is, they sought it out: George Washington, Walt Whitman, Frederick the Great, Eugène Delacroix, Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant, Thomas Jefferson, Matthew Arnold, Ambrose Bierce, Theodore Roosevelt, William Alexander Percy, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Each read, studied, quoted, or admired the Stoics.”
Stoicism is considered an antidote to regret, and I like that approach. If you look in the rearview mirror too long, you’ll crash into the car in front of you. Or run over a person, a pet, an object. Best to look forward.
Take that trip to China. Start singing lessons. Make that movie. In the doing, be wise and judicious, brave and kind.
Your regrets will soften, then eventually disappear. What’s more, the entirety of yourself will finally emerge, unburdened, in all its glory. Hair perfect, skin peachy, smile glowing.
Make sure you take a picture, yearbook-like, and post it somewhere, for all the world to see. Me, I’ll be sending it to my sweet niece. Who clearly gives me a lot of leeway already, so I know what she’ll say:
“Beauty.”
To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
— William Blake
This week, write 100 words everyday if you can manage it, just 100 words, to get back to the joy of setting words to the page. Summer is almost here. Use sunshine, warm days, and deep breaths to write down your thoughts, about this topic or any other. Send them to me. I’d love to read them.