Life has a funny way of ending chapters right when you’re finally starting to enjoy them. You’ll be knee-deep in a gripping plot, the kind that’s finally making sense, when bam! The universe slams the cover shut. Meanwhile, some other chapters drag on like a bad TV show that just won’t get canceled, leaving you tangled in storylines that overlap and tangle like a cheap pair of earbuds.
Recognizing that one end is just the prologue to another tale can be like spotting a hidden door in an otherwise familiar room — a doorway many never perceive until it’s too late. It’s unfortunately one of those life skills they don’t teach you in school — right alongside how to do your taxes properly or deal with an existential crisis at 3 AM. Most people, including yours truly for the longest time, mistake opportunity for a risk not worth taking.
I spent years treating life like it was an overly cautious board game, avoiding almost every metaphorical ladder for fear of landing on a chute. I saw opportunity only through the cloudy lens of risk, a specter I hesitated to confront. It’s a curious thing, how we cling to the familiar, the safe, and the predictable, molding ourselves to fit the expectations handed down to us.
The kicker is that a life without risk is like a sandwich without any filling — bland and unsatisfying. The more you try to fit into those cookie-cutter molds society hands out, the more pieces of yourself you end up losing. Trust me, once you snip off those unique edges, they’re gone for good. Like phantom limbs, the best parts of you drift off into the ether, becoming the stuff of “what could have been” dreams. They pop up at the worst times, taunting you with a slideshow of missed chances.
Regret is an underrated emotion, though. It’s the personal trainer of feelings—harsh, unyielding, but it really knows how to get results. It’s that nagging voice that pushes you to do better, be better, or at the very least, not make the same mistake for the umpteenth time. But, there’s a curious beauty in regret, too. It reminds us of our capacity to dream, to yearn, to aspire for something more. In such longing lies the seed of new beginnings.
Many of us are like the caterpillar, content in its crawling existence, yet destined for transformation. The end of its life as a caterpillar is but the beginning of its flight as a butterfly. So too are we capable of metamorphosis, shedding the old to embrace the new. The chrysalis phase is uncomfortable, even painful, but it’s in this discomfort that we find real growth.
Imagine standing on a precipice, the wind whipping at your back, urging you to take the leap into the unknown. The valley below is shrouded in mist, and though you can’t see the bottom, there’s an undeniable thrill in the possibility of flight. It’s in that moment of suspension, between the leap and the fall, that you truly feel alive. Life without risk is like a symphony without crescendos, a painting without color—merely a shadow of what it could be.
After all, what is life but a series of beginnings disguised as endings, a perpetual show of closing doors and opening windows? So, here’s to the risks that transform suddenly into opportunities and the regrets that drive us forward, kicking and screaming, into hopefully better chapters of our lives.
~ Amelia Desertsong
