It’s easy to look back on our lives and see where something changed us. Whether it’s monumental or minor, there are moments in every life that find us choosing the road less traveled, or the main thoroughfare. At the time, we may have no idea what’s going on and can only see things through the lens of the now. But we have hindsight, and oftentimes, that’s where we learn the most about ourselves.

I won’t lie to you and say there aren’t things in my life I regret. Chances not taken are at the top of my list. But when I think of some of the negative aspects of my life, I have to admit, they lead to positive changes further down the road. This is why we can’t regret the things that molded us. We can hate that they happened, we can be sad we experienced what we perceived as a loss, and we can even be angry that bad things happened to us. But to regret or wish them away would change the course of our lives in ways we can’t imagine.

It does no good to wish away a lifetime of choices. Too often, I sat with myself, lonely, scared, and depressed; Wishing I had made a different choice, a perceived better choice. But if I were able, in those down moments, to actually affect those changes, I wouldn’t have my children, I wouldn’t know my current husband, and I wouldn’t have the extraordinary life I live today. It isn’t all sunshine and roses, but the good days far outweigh the bad, and for that, I’m thankful.

I believe too often, we sit with our pain for too long and begin to believe it has to be a constant part of our lives. It doesn’t. Pain exists for the purpose of reminding us we’re alive, to let us know we’ve lived through something. The most important part of that is, we are alive, we did get through it, and we can do it again if necessary.

Rather than live a life full of regrets, we can choose to gain knowledge from our experiences and move forward. It isn’t always easy, but we’ve made it this far. Not unscathed, but marked by our scars that prove to us, we lived, we loved, and we’re still here to do more.