the Monday Musings column from that consultant bloke

I am more in the Edith Piaf camp here, rather than that of Paul Anka’s words as made famous my Frank Sinatra, amongst others. I really don’t have regrets.

Taken in isolation there are things that I have done that I would have preferred to have done differently. I know, for example, that I have hurt people and am not proud of that. Overall though, the steps that I took back in the first half of my life so far brought me into the life of the Berkshire Belle, and I have been with her ever since. So no regrets.

I think that there are two factors in the way that I approach life. The first is the way that I was brought up by my parents, my teachers and the other adults from my early days. They taught me that decisions had consequences, and that I had to live with the results of my own decisions. “You’ve made your bed, so you have to lie in it” was a saying I heard many times, and it is true.

The other factor is that, from early on in my working life, I got trained in a variety of management skills. This reinforced the understanding that things were going to happen regardless of anything that I did, and so ou had to decide, not just what to do, but when, and, sometimes, whether, to do it. As a manager you needed to assess the consequences of every option: You needed judgement.

You get better at this stuff as you gain experience and, of course, you learn from your mistakes. One, very common, mistake is to overlook learning from your successes too, bit, if you are any good, you’ll work that one out.

As a manager almost everything that you do will please some and upset others. You lay on overtime, so some will see that as great because of the extra pay, but others will be unhappy because they miss out on something by being at work. If you place a contract the successful company will be glad of the order, but others will have lost out and, if you are big enough, that might be the final straw that means one of them will have to lay off people. There are always winners and losers: This is real life.

As an individual I have been shaped by my experience and my professional life flows over into my private one. I am very good at compartmentalising for one thing, but I also apply the logic of trying to understand what the consequences will be for anything I decide to do. I am well aware that there can be casualties.

I learned very early on that I had married the wrong woman (my first marriage), and I struggled with the decision of what to do about it, working from leaving her and our two children through suicide (I had a very good compensation package). There was no easy answer, but in the end I left, and, there under my nose, was the woman of my dreams. We are together still.

I have done a lot in my seventy years so far. Some of it has been stupid, especially in the early years, but I have done some good stuff too and have experienced far more than I could have dreamt of as a boy. I am content with my life, I understand and accept who I am, and I live with the woman that I love and who loves me.

I can’t go back and change anything and so, for me, regrets are a pointless emotion. I’ve done what I’ve done, and none of it was with malice. I take responsibility for what I have done. Regrets? No, I regret nothing.