There are two things in the world which hurt quite a lot to waste.

Time and money.

As a young and often foolish child, I wasted both of these things on video games. I spent an absurd amount of time accumulating points, to rank up in what were completely fictional systems.

On one particular game alone, I spent about half of the pocket money I had at the time, to obtain fancy skins so people I didn’t know online would validate me. (They didn’t.)

Since the past year, I’ve quit playing video games. Despite this, I often find myself regretting wasting my time and money on them in the first place.

Recently though, I’ve had a thought. Why do I even need to regret the fact that my time and money are gone? Am I just blindly following some script telling me this is how I’m supposed to feel?

First of all, I’m existing right now in the present. Shouldn’t that be enough to satisfy me? Is there even anything I can do about what happened?

You’re probably regretting wasting your precious time and money in the past as well. Your situation might’ve been far worse than my video game era.

The truth is that feeling regretful about it is pointless. You should actually be grateful instead. Here’s why.

Why it’s good your time and money are gone

Here’s a simple truth: the past has passed.

As much as it may hurt to think about those hours you wasted on completely pointless activities or how you gambled away your life savings for nothing, there isn’t much you can do about it now. But you can learn from it, if you want to.

It’s easy to feel like we constantly have to think about our past mistakes and beat ourselves up for them, like feeling completely ashamed of our past behaviour is the only way to change course and move forward in our lives. What good does that achieve though?

You can’t get a refund on either the time or the money you regret wasting. The time is gone forever. That’s obvious. The money you regret wasting can’t be refunded, or else you wouldn’t be regretting wasting it. You’d just get a refund instead, but you can’t now.

Since there’s simply nothing you can do to reverse time or get that refund now, you’re left with only one option. To actually be grateful for the fact that you used your time and money in stupid ways. To appreciate your past self for being an idiot. To learn from those mistakes.

Life doesn’t stop and wait for you to get over the time you wasted your time or money in the past. It just keeps on going without a care for your feelings. You have to keep going as well.

It’s good that what happened in the past happened. It’s a lesson for what not to do now and in the future, one you can pass down to your children and their children, so they’ll laugh about it and learn as well.

Don’t be afraid to experiment/invest

So, you’ve learnt your lesson.

You won’t waste your time scrolling through endless social media feeds anymore, wasting all your disposable income on random gadgets, or however else you wasted your time and money.

There’s a problem that can arise now from learning your lesson and no longer regretting the past. Neglecting the present.

It’s easy to become extremely cautious with how you use every second of your time out of fear that anything you do might end up being in vain again. You might save endless amounts of money for no good reason without spending anything since you fear you’ll lose it all again in a stupid way.

There’s nothing wrong with managing your time or saving your money. But you also can’t be afraid to use your time and money in ways that might benefit you. You might think you’ve moved on from the past but it’s still influencing you by holding you back from doing anything even slightly risky with your precious time and money.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with your time. Try interesting things which could fail. Spend your money on things that will benefit you. See them as investments. Obviously don’t do stupid things with your time and money you know you’ll definitely regret.

But the whole point of having time and money isn’t to hoard it all. It’s to spend and use it.

Whether those experiments or investments succeed or fail, you learn a lesson. You learn more about yourself, what you like and don’t like, what works for you and what doesn’t. These lessons are priceless.

Conclusion

In short, you should be grateful that you wasted your time and money in the past because you don’t really have another option, unless you want to condemn yourself to more years of pointless suffering.

Life is always moving forward, and so must you. Don’t stand there motionless because of some mistakes you made in the past which you’ve now allowed to define you.

Be prepared to fail and to use your time and money in stupid ways again because it will happen. As much as you may commit to never wasting your precious assets again, you’re not perfect.

Don’t leave the past completely behind. It’s happened so you can’t deny it. You might as well learn from it.