You made one decision at seventeen that you're still paying for at thirty five. The interest rate on regret is infinite.
You chose the wrong school. The wrong person. The wrong city. At seventeen with a developing brain and zero life experience. Now you're billing yourself for it with adult expectations.
At seventeen you made a decision.
Wrong major. Wrong city. Wrong crowd.
You've been paying for it ever since.
Not in money. In shame.
Every year you add interest.
What if I had picked differently. What if I had known better.
You're charging a teenager adult prices.
That teenager couldn't rent a car. Couldn't sign a lease.
But somehow they're responsible for the trajectory of your entire life.
They made the decision with the only information they had.
Which was almost nothing.
A brochure. A feeling. A conversation with someone who didn't know better either.
The decision wasn't wrong for that moment. It was the only decision that moment could produce.
You blame the seventeen year old for not having the thirty five year old's clarity.
That's like blaming a match for not being a lighthouse.
The match did what matches do. It lit what it could reach.
What you did with the light after that is the real story.
And the real story has more chapters than the one bad decision.
You just keep rereading page one instead of writing page two hundred.
The seventeen year old did their best. The thirty five year old is punishing them for it. Settle the account. You've paid enough.