"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."
Be careful with this one. If you could transport yourself back in time to each of the key decisions you made as a younger you, you would likely realize that in most cases, you made the best decision you could with the information and resources you had at the time.
Learn from it, and then apply what you can for the benefit of older you. Regret is pernicious.
"Live in the now and make the now the way you want it to be."
Sometimes (most of the times for the "normal" person), this is impossible, contradictory, conflicting...His approach to the subject is realistic, effective...Does it sound good? definitely no...That's life..
You can look at it in a positive way though...work with the resources you have to get the best from them...maybe not the life you want, but the best one you can get from your current reality.
One of the wisest and most succinct things I’ve read on this site.