Are you reading this in a coffee shop? There are dozens of other coffee shops you might have chosen, other beverages you might have ordered, and other books you might have taken along. If you’re not in a coffee shop—well, you might have been.
The situation in which you find yourself is singular. Just as the present moment is the only one that truly exists, given that the past is gone and the future is a fantasy, your current situation is the only real one open to you. The option you chose is the one you have.
The alternatives, however, are always multiple. You could be in the park, at the beach, home in bed, hanging upside-down at the climbing wall. The odds that you made the best selection from the hundreds or thousands of options that were open to you are pretty minimal. The best home, partner, job, city, friends, belt, education, menu item? The best book to be reading right now? Surely one of those other choices would have been at least a little bit better.
You can almost always envision an alternative that might have been preferable to the one you chose. Here’s the strategy:
You can use this strategy wherever you are, no matter how big or small the situation. In a restaurant, you can dwell on the really great meals you had in other establishments. In the multiplex, you can imagine the terrific films playing out on the other screens. While traveling, you can contemplate the charms of the destinations you bypassed for this one. On the road, you can think about the better traffic patterns on other routes. At your desk, you can long for the fun of other jobs you might have taken. At home, you can compare your daughter’s love of the drums to the blissful silence from the childless couple’s home next door.
Although this prescription may seem simple, there are tricky elements. First, you must disregard any features of your present situation that are superior to the alternatives. Dwell on the better location of the camping area you might have chosen over the one you did. Ignore the fact that the alternative site is presently being pelted with rain.
Second, you must avoid any awareness of alternatives that might have been even worse than the one you chose. True, you turned down a date with the nerdy programmer who subsequently made billions, but you also filtered out several who presently reside in federal custody. Thinking about the roads best not taken, you will only risk feeling pleased with the one you are on.
Third, you must ignore the fact that you really haven’t taken those alternatives and that, as a result, your comparison is based entirely on a fantasy. Perhaps, having accepted that job offer in Cincinnati, you would have stepped out of the airport and been hit by a bus. You don’t really know. Instead, assume that your vision about how things might have been is flawlessly accurate.
If, for some reason, you are unable or unwilling to blame yourself for the path you are on, all is not lost. Lay the responsibility at someone else’s doorstep instead. “Sarojni was the one who told me to buy this lemon of a car.” This will fan the flames of angry resentment and damage a friendship, adding to the regret of a disappointing purchase. If no other perpetrators suggest themselves, you can blame the fates (Everything happens to me!) and rehearse the sense of being an insignificant leaf tossed about by a hostile and anonymous storm.
Concerned that perhaps you are being unfair to your present experience? Nonsense. There is validity to this grass-is-greener strategy. If you have succeeded in making yourself miserable, those other places really are more fun to be—if only because right now you are not there to spoil them.