“The thing about regret is, it’s better to regret something you have done than something you haven’t done.”

- Butthole Surfers, “Human Cannonball”

Maybe they stole that quote from somewhere else. Then again, surely no one knows more about questionable decisions than Gibby Haynes. 

You can sit around all god damn day wishing in one hand and pooping in the other, romanticizing an imaginary time machine wherein you knew what you know now when you were younger, and if you enjoy making yourself miserable, then that’s one of the best techniques I can recommend. 

The fact of the matter is – and this is probably not entirely fact or by any means an admission to a belief in fate – you were probably never going to do anything other than what you’ve done. If you had it to do over, without the knowledge of the previous outcome, you’d likely do exactly what you wanted to do in that situation every time. I don’t believe at all that your life story is spelled out in the stars, but given how many people knowingly repeat the same bad decisions without the benefit of time travel, it’s somehow comforting to know there’s no point in wasting wishes on poorly made choices. 

I’ve been arrested four times with one felony attached. I have five maxed out credit cards. I have some pretty shitty tattoos. I’ve broken hearts that didn’t deserve to be broken. I’ve burned a few bridges that were better left intact. 

However, the day will come when I’m lying on a sidewalk, a knife jutting out of my rib cage, watching someone who probably has a higher credit score than i do make their way down the street with my phone and wallet in hand and if any regrets come to mind, they won’t be anything I just mentioned. I’ll be wishing I’d known I was going to die that day so I hadn’t wasted all that money paying off credit cards.