Excellence is a habit, but so is failure
Life is about taking risk.  We make daily decisions that involve big and small risk constantly.<p>Choosing to enjoy life today instead of waiting for tomorrow for that enjoyment isn&#x27;t a <i>failure</i>, it&#x27;s a choice.  It comes with risk and tradeoffs.<p>Everyone thinks there&#x27;s a magical line that everyone else should take that straddles that line between enjoyment today and tomorrow.  That lines doesn&#x27;t exist, and isn&#x27;t even the same from day to day.<p>Looking back and regretting a lifetime of decisions is caused that the consequences from those earlier decisions.  Once that weight becomes too heavy, the regret sets in.<p>IMO, the way to combat that is two-fold.<p>First, in the moment, be conscious of what the risks are, and if they are worth it.  If they aren&#x27;t, take <i>pride</i> in settling for less at the moment so you can safeguard your future.  You&#x27;re doing something hard and good, and it should feel good in itself to do it.<p>Second, when you look back, <i>remember</i> the joy you had at the time.  It was judged, to the best of your ability, to be worth it <i>at the time</i>, and you should continue to feel warm and fuzzy from that joy today, even if bad things have come about as consequence for it.<p>For instance, like the author, I gained rather a lot of weight.  Then I lost most of the excess.  Then I gained half of it back.  Every day is now a struggle to try to get my weight back down, and my blood pressure is back up so high I couldn&#x27;t have dental surgery safely the other day, and I&#x27;m back on medication.<p>According to the author that&#x27;s a failure, but I had a <i>lot</i> of really, really enjoyable meals.  I ate the vast majority of them with friends and family.  Many of them were either cooked by family, or were special occasions.  Calling those meals &quot;failures&quot; now would be saying that it was a mistake to enjoy that time with my family and friends, and it absolutely wasn&#x27;t.