My friend was really depressed. I've rarely seen her so lacking in energy, unfocused and generally pessimistic in her outlooks. Nothing I could say seemed to cheer her, and my gentle requests for an explanation went unanswered.

There was nothing else to do but 'wait it out'. I knew that when she was ready she would give me a clue about what it was that was bothering her so profoundly. My challenge was to be patient, not to push too hard, and to be alert to the cue that would tell me she was ready to share her feelings.

Finally, it came - so subtle I almost missed it. A simple off-hand remark tacked onto the end of another, completely unrelated conversation. "I've been thinking about my mother lately," she said, "and I just wish I'd taken her west to see the Rockies before she passed on". Bingo!

We've all participated in those conversations that include the words, "I just wish I had . . .", "If only I'd known . .", "I really should have . . .", at some time in our lives, haven't we?

As a result of this experience, I began thinking about how we actually make decisions in our lives. One thing is very sure, whenever we re-make decisions we often reach the conclusion that we didn't do the job very well the first time. But then, as Aunt Eva used to say, "Hindsight, laddie, has twenty - twenty vision."

Is it really what we know at the time that defines the quality of our decisions? Could it be then that decisions are best made after the event? Perhaps that would explain why so many people try to avoid making decisions at all. There are others too, who will always defend the right to change their minds whenever the situation changes and regardless of consequences.

Let's face it, making decisions, especially those which are important, sensitive and/or have binding impact, is one of the toughest challenges we encounter. Yet I can't recall anyone ever teaching me the right way to do it - not even at school. If I don't make the right decisions in my life though, I and others could be adversely affected in substantial and irreversible ways. This is important, wouldn't you agree?

Consider, we are complex beings. There are many levels to each one of us, starting on the surface with the physical level of behaviors - actions, words and expressions. At the next level is the rich world of emotions - our feelings, energies, motives and attitudes. Deeper still are the rational / mental processes - our perceptions, viewpoints, realities and adopted 'truths'. Finally, at our inner-most core are our spiritual qualities - the value sets, central beliefs, guiding principles and priorities. We are continuously moving between these levels.

Decisions come from the core. They are 'driven' by our values, refined by our perceptions, shaped by our emotions and implemented or made reality by our actions and words.

The consequences of this are evident. It is hard to make any decision which goes against our core values, and these do not change very much throughout our life. Good decisions, right or wrong, are generally true to 'who' we are.

The way we see the world around us however, does tend to change with time and experience. Our perceptions today can be quite different than those we held a few years ago. We call this change process "maturity" - the gaining of wisdom.

Further, we all have made decisions in the heat of emotion, recognizing that this will distort our behaviors, sometimes changing our words and actions and sometimes intensifying them.

There are occasions too when we'll act as, or say what's expected just to accommodate the wishes of others. These are not really decisions though that we can truly call our own.

My friend said, "If I only had then, the wisdom and knowledge I have now, I would certainly have taken her to see the Rockies". This may be so, but it isn't reality. When the decision was originally made, she used the values and the perceptions she owned at the time. Her values haven't changed too much since then, but her perceptions today are quite different from those she had then. Also there's no way she can reproduce the emotional condition she was experiencing at the time, nor the physical pressures that prevailed.

In all probability she made the best decision she could have made at the time. Why would she now want to criticize herself? Making a comparable decision today, with changed perceptions, other emotional and physical pressures, would be sure to produce a different outcome. There's no reason to feel guilt or remorse over the original decision though.

When we consider others, we accept that they see the world differently from us, and we can often benefit from those differences. It would be a boring world, after all, if we all saw the world the same way. Yet we appear to be much less tolerant of ourselves. Over time, our perceptions change and we interpret the world differently. We become a 'different' person.

Since we would not expect any other person to make precisely the same decisions that we would, why should we expect that our own decisions, separated by time, would be consistent? And, if they are not consistent, why would we punish ourselves with liberal doses of guilt?

I'm not saying that we cannot profit from reviewing our past decisions. What we can do that is useful, even valuable, is to learn from our experiences. The decisions we've made have led to events. These events have had both positive and negative consequences. The constructive question might be, "What could we do, in the future, that would increase the positive and reduce the negative impact of events in similar circumstances?" Focus on the ensuing events, not on the causative decisions.

Life is a continuous learning experience. Carrying guilt and remorse for decisions we cannot change has little or no payback. On the other hand, learning is exciting, stimulating and often rewarding. The choice is ours to make.

So, what's your decision?