If you had asked me this a few years ago, I probably would have given you a practical answer. I might have said I wish I had started saving money earlier, travelling earlier, taking better care of myself, building my career sooner, learning new things or becoming more confident. There are probably dozens of things I could put on that list, but the older I get, the more I realise that my answer is actually much simpler than any of those things. I wish I had started living my life to the fullest much earlier.

For a long time, I think I was living without really allowing myself to live. I was growing older, studying, working, dealing with responsibilities, solving problems and doing all the things that life required from me, but somewhere along the way, I became so focused on everything that was wrong, difficult or uncertain that I forgot life was still happening at the same time. I kept thinking there would eventually be a better period for certain things. I could travel later. I could try something new later. I could make more friends later. I could go out more later. I could start a hobby later. I could enjoy myself properly once this problem was solved or that situation changed.

The problem with “later” is that it sounds completely harmless when you say it. You don’t realise you’re giving anything up because you’re not saying no forever; you’re simply saying not right now. There is always another weekend, another birthday, another year, another opportunity. Until one day, you look backwards and realise that all those little “laters” have quietly turned into years.

I Thought I Had More Time

When we’re younger, we have a strange relationship with time. We know logically that we’re getting older, but we don’t necessarily feel it. Eighteen becomes twenty-one, twenty-one becomes twenty-five, and suddenly you’re looking backwards at versions of yourself that once felt incredibly grown-up and thinking about how young you actually were. You start remembering all the things you could have done at those ages and wondering why you didn’t.

Sometimes, these aren’t even huge life-changing experiences. I think that’s what makes the feeling more complicated. Maybe you wish you had travelled more, gone out more often, joined a class, learnt how to swim, made new friends, worn clothes you loved without worrying about what other people thought, taken more photographs, explored your own city, celebrated birthdays properly or simply been more spontaneous. At the time, none of those things seemed urgent because you assumed there would always be another chance.

We tend to imagine “living life to the fullest” as something dramatic. We picture someone quitting their job, travelling around the world, jumping out of aeroplanes and having adventures every weekend. But I’m beginning to think living fully is much quieter than that. It can be ordering the dessert you really want, watching a sunset instead of rushing home, taking yourself somewhere you’ve wanted to visit, saying yes to an invitation, trying something even though you might be terrible at it or taking the photograph even when you don’t feel completely confident in yourself.

Those moments may seem insignificant individually, but a life is mostly made up of small moments. If we keep waiting for something extraordinary to happen before we consider ourselves to be truly living, we might miss all the ordinary experiences that eventually become the memories we wish we had more of.

When Problems Become Bigger Than Life

I think one of the biggest reasons I wish I had started living differently earlier is because I spent so much time focusing on problems. When something wasn’t right in one part of my life, it sometimes felt as though everything was wrong. Instead of allowing the problem to remain one part of my life, I allowed it to affect how I experienced everything else.

Maybe you’ve experienced this too. You’re worried about money, so you feel guilty spending anything on yourself. You’re unhappy with work, so every weekday becomes something you simply have to survive. You’re struggling with a relationship, so you can’t completely enjoy the other good things happening around you. You’re insecure about yourself, so you avoid photographs, events or experiences because you tell yourself you’ll do them when you feel more confident. You’re waiting for one situation to change, and without even noticing it, your entire life enters a waiting room with it.

Looking back, I wish I had understood that I didn’t need to solve every problem before I was allowed to enjoy my life. I could have been worried about something and still gone out for dinner. I could have been uncertain about my future and still tried something new. I could have had responsibilities and still made time for things that made me happy. Having a problem didn’t mean I needed to put every other part of myself on hold until it disappeared.

Because the truth is, I don’t think there is ever going to be a magical period of adulthood where absolutely everything is perfect. There will always be something that needs attention. There will be bills, deadlines, responsibilities, disagreements, disappointments, unexpected expenses and plans that don’t work out the way we hoped. If we decide that happiness can only exist once every problem has been solved, we may spend our entire lives preparing to be happy instead of actually experiencing it.

“I Should Have Done That When I Was Younger”

There are certain things I look at now and think, I should have done that when I was younger. I should have started sooner. I should have experienced that at a particular age. I should have taken more chances when I had fewer responsibilities. And I think many of us have our own version of this thought. Maybe you believe you should have travelled at twenty-one, made more friends at eighteen, started your dream career at twenty-five or discovered a hobby when you were a child.

Without realising it, we begin mourning versions of ourselves that never existed. We imagine an alternative younger version of ourselves who was more confident, adventurous, social and fearless. In our minds, that person took every opportunity we ignored and somehow lived exactly the life we now wish we had lived.

But there’s something unfair about judging our younger selves with everything we know today. The person you were five or ten years ago didn’t have your current perspective. Maybe you didn’t have enough money. Maybe you weren’t confident enough. Maybe your circumstances were completely different. Maybe you were dealing with things nobody else knew about. Maybe you genuinely believed you were making the right decisions. Or perhaps you simply didn’t understand yet how quickly time would move.

We know now because we lived through those years. That doesn’t mean the person we were back then should have known too.

I Don’t Want Regret to Waste More of My Time

This is probably the biggest lesson I’m trying to teach myself now. There is no point spending the next five years regretting the five years I believe I wasted. If I do that, all I’ve really done is turn five years of regret into ten.

Regret can become another way of postponing life. You become so focused on everything you didn’t do that you stop noticing what you can still do. You look at photographs of your younger self and think about all the opportunities she had, without realising that your future self may one day look at photographs of you right now and think exactly the same thing.

That’s what really changes my perspective. Whatever age you are today will probably feel young to you someday. We keep believing youth belongs to a previous version of ourselves while our future selves would probably give anything to come back and experience an ordinary day at the age we are now. One day, I might look at myself today and wonder why I thought I was too old to begin something. I might wonder why I worried so much or why I didn’t appreciate the freedom, people or opportunities I had around me.

I don’t want to keep repeating that cycle.

Stop Saving Your Life for Later

There are certain things we save because they’re special. We keep the expensive perfume for an important occasion, leave the beautiful dress hanging in the wardrobe, save the fancy plates for guests or refuse to burn the candle because it smells too good. Sometimes I think we accidentally start treating our lives the same way. We save experiences for the “right” moment and assume there will eventually be a version of our lives that feels worthy enough to enjoy them.

We tell ourselves we’ll travel when we have more money, start a hobby when we have more time, wear certain clothes when we’re more confident, go somewhere when someone can come with us or celebrate ourselves once we’ve achieved something worth celebrating. We keep saving happiness for some future version of ourselves who has everything figured out.

But sometimes the dress eventually doesn’t fit. The restaurant closes. Someone moves away. The opportunity disappears. Your priorities change. Life moves forward whether you’ve used the things you were saving or not.

I’m slowly learning that enjoying something doesn’t waste it. Sometimes not enjoying it is the real waste.

That doesn’t mean living recklessly or ignoring the future. Living life to the fullest doesn’t mean spending every penny, abandoning responsibilities or saying yes to everything. Tomorrow matters, and we should absolutely prepare for it. But today matters too. There has to be a way to build a future without sacrificing every present moment in order to get there.

What I Would Tell My Younger Self

If I could sit with my younger self for a few minutes, I don’t think I’d give her some dramatic speech about changing her entire life. I’d simply tell her to stop waiting so much. I’d tell her to take more photographs, even when she doesn’t think she looks perfect. I’d tell her to go places, meet people, learn things badly, wear what she likes and celebrate things without worrying about whether they’re important enough to celebrate.

I’d tell her that most people aren’t paying nearly as much attention to her as she thinks they are. I’d tell her that she doesn’t need to wait until she’s confident before trying something because sometimes confidence only arrives after you’ve started. I’d remind her that one difficult part of life doesn’t automatically make the entire life bad and that she is allowed to laugh, travel, celebrate and create good memories even while something else remains unresolved.

Most importantly, I’d tell her that she doesn’t need a special reason to make a memory. Not every beautiful moment needs to celebrate a birthday, anniversary, promotion or achievement. Sometimes a random Wednesday is enough of a reason to go somewhere you’ve wanted to visit. Sometimes wanting to do something is reason enough.

But the truth is, my younger self can’t hear any of this.

I can.

And maybe you can too.

My Advice? Don’t Wait for Your Life to Begin

If there’s one thing I would tell anyone who feels the same way, it would be this: don’t turn regret about yesterday into another reason to waste today.

Maybe there are things you wish you had done at eighteen, twenty-one, twenty-five or thirty. Maybe there are experiences you think you’ve missed completely. It’s okay to feel sad about that sometimes. We are allowed to wish certain chapters had looked different. But don’t become so attached to the life you could have lived that you forget about the one you still have.

Start where you are. You don’t have to completely reinvent yourself tomorrow or suddenly become fearless, adventurous and spontaneous. Just start saying yes to yourself a little more often. Take the picture. Make the reservation. Learn the thing you’ve always wanted to learn. Wear something because you love it. Visit somewhere you’ve been saving for “one day.” Message the friend you’ve been meaning to contact. Celebrate small wins. Use the nice perfume. Burn the candle.

And when life gets difficult, remember that you don’t have to put happiness on hold until everything becomes perfect. Problems and beautiful moments can exist in the same life. Sometimes they can even exist on the same day.

I can’t go backwards and live my younger years differently, and maybe I don’t need to. The only useful thing I can do with that regret is allow it to change the way I live now. I can stop waiting for some imaginary future version of my life where everything finally makes sense, and I can start paying more attention to the life that is already happening.

Because maybe the saddest thing isn’t reaching a certain age and thinking, I wish I had started living earlier.

Maybe the saddest thing would be having that realization and still deciding to wait.