How to Not Live With Regret | Richard Mulholland
Richard Mulholland recounts a story about an old lady whose failed romance taught him an important lesson about regret.
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00:00 Imagine sitting there 60 years later regretting something that you didn't do.
00:05 Like, can you fathom that?
00:07 I walked in together and she was sitting there crying and she had this suitcase on her knees.
00:11 And I said, "Mamie, what's wrong?"
00:20 When she was young, and she was about 20, she was born I think it was in 1908, so about
00:25 1928.
00:26 She moved to Canada and she moved to the Toronto area and she met a man there by the name of
00:31 Leslie John Moore and she fell in love with him.
00:34 So eventually one night he takes her out to the Great Lakes and he gets down on one knee
00:38 and he asks her to marry him and she says yes.
00:41 So it was a beautiful thing.
00:42 So she says she has to go back to Scotland to get her stuff and tell her family.
00:46 So he gives her a suitcase and it has his initials on it.
00:49 Says LJM, Leslie John Moore.
00:52 And she takes the suitcase and she gets on a boat and she goes back to Scotland.
00:56 And she tells her mom and her dad that she is engaged to be married and they're all very,
00:59 very happy.
01:01 And then they turn around and they say to her, "Hey, but this guy, is he a Catholic?"
01:05 And he says, "No, no, no, he's a Protestant."
01:07 And at that time, that was a big deal in Scotland.
01:10 So Mamie was never allowed to speak to that man again, ever.
01:20 The week before she died, I walked in together and she was sitting there crying and she had
01:23 this suitcase on her knees.
01:25 And I said, "Mamie, what's wrong?"
01:27 And she said, "I was just wondering what my life would have been like if I'd married Leslie
01:32 John Moore."
01:33 It's inconceivable to me.
01:35 And I find that regret is a real problem that we're all going to have to atone for.
01:40 And I find that every single time you say, "No, no, you're right, you're right," and you
01:43 don't do something, what you do is you're writing out a check made to regret.
01:48 And that check you're writing for regret, you will have to pay one day.
01:52 One day you will sit there with your grandkids and you will have that suitcase with LJM on
01:56 your knee and you'll have to ask for forgiveness for yourself for all the shit you didn't try.
02:02 It's far better to live with the regret of the mistakes you have made than to die with
02:06 regret of never having tried.
02:08 So you actually have to try.
02:10 Yesterday would have been easier.
02:11 Tomorrow will be harder.
02:13 There is no waiting.
02:14 It's not going to get easier when your kids finish school.
02:16 It's never going to get cheaper.
02:17 It's never going to feel like it's making more sense.
02:19 You do it and you do it now.
02:21 [Music]