“For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.'” So wrote Whittier in his poem “Maud Muller.”
It’s interesting to me that I interpret this poem differently now, late in life, than I did when I first read it as a young man. Back then, I saw the message only as “making wrong choices can lead to a lifetime of regret.”
Now late in life, I still realize that making wrong choices leads to regrets, but that is not the reason for sadness. The sadness comes from spending so much of life looking back at regrets and thinking “It might have been,” instead of moving on, seeking forgiveness when appropriate, learning, and looking forward.