Let me tell you about the things I did not do.
I did not buy that apartment when the neighborhood was still cheap. I did not say yes to that job offer that would have set me up for life. I walked past the person who probably would have been a wonderful partner, because I was too busy chasing someone who was not right for me. I am at that age now where the window for "best choices" feels like it might be closing.
These are the regrets that visit you at 3 AM. The what-ifs. The if-onlys. The quiet math of missed opportunities adding up to a life that looks different—maybe smaller, maybe less certain—than the one you once imagined.
I carried these thoughts for a long time. They sat in my chest like unopened letters. And then I started hangboarding.
What Is a Hangboard?
For those who do not climb, a hangboard is a deceptively simple tool. A block of wood—usually hardwood like maple or beech—mounted to a wall. It has shallow edges of varying depths (measured in millimeters) and sometimes pockets for one, two, three, or four fingers. That is it. No moving parts. No batteries. Just you, the wood, and gravity.
Climbers use hangboards to build finger strength. You grab an edge, lift your feet off the ground, and hold on. For five seconds. For ten. For as long as your body and mind allow. Then you rest. Then you do it again.
It sounds boring. It looks boring. But anyone who has actually hung from a 14mm edge knows: there is nothing boring about staring into the face of your own limits.
What Regret Taught Me
Here is the strange thing about regret. It lives in the past, but it steals from the future. Every minute I spent replaying that apartment I did not buy, that person I did not choose, that year I spent in the wrong job—every one of those minutes was a minute I was not living my actual life.
I thought I was being wise by analyzing my mistakes. But I was really just freezing. I was gripping the past so tightly that I had no hands left for the present.
Then I stepped beneath the hang board.
The Hang board Does Not Care About Your Past
The first time I hung properly, my fingers lasted about four seconds before I peeled off and landed on the mat. Four seconds. I have been climbing for years. I have sent routes that made me proud. And yet, on that wooden edge, I was nobody. Just a person with weak fingers and a noisy mind.
The hanging board has no memory. It does not know about the money you should have made, the love you should have chased, the timing you should have gotten right. It only knows this: Can you hold on right now?
That is the gift of the climbing hangboard. It forces you into the present. When your entire focus is on keeping your fingertips pressed into a 20mm edge, you cannot worry about your 401(k). You cannot mourn the partner who got away. There is only breath, tension, and the quiet war between your will and your body's urge to let go.
Forward is the Only Direction
After a few weeks of hangboarding, something shifted. Not just in my fingers, but in how I thought about those old regrets.
I started to see them differently. Not as failures, but as data. Every missed opportunity taught me something: about what I truly value, about who I am when no one is watching, about the difference between what I wanted and what I actually needed.
That cheap apartment I did not buy? It taught me that I am not a real estate investor. I am a climber who loves small spaces and early mornings.
That partner I let slip away? They taught me what kindness looks like, so that next time—if there is a next time—I will recognize it faster.
That decade spent in the wrong career? It gave me the savings that let me take a year off to climb. Without the boring years, I could not afford the wild ones.
Regret is just experience you have not yet said thank you to.
The Hangboard Philosophy
Hangboarding is deeply unglamorous. No one posts videos of their tenth repeater set. But it teaches a lesson that applies to everything else in life: Consistency beats timing.
You cannot go back and buy that stock at 22. You cannot go back and say the right thing to that person at 25. But you can hang today. You can rest tomorrow. You can hang again the day after. Small, consistent, boring effort adds up to genuine strength.
That is the counterintuitive truth. We think life is about big moments: the right job, the right wedding, the right investment. But life is actually made of tiny, unremarkable choices. Hanging on for one more second. Breathing instead of panicking. Showing up when you do not feel like it.
What I See Now
I look back at my regrets differently now. Not with longing, but with gratitude. Every wrong turn, every late start, every "missed" chance—they all brought me here. To this wall. To this wooden board. To this moment where I am not rich, not perfectly partnered, not optimized for success—but I am strong.
Not just finger strong. Quiet strong. The kind of strong that knows regret is not a prison. It is just a rearview mirror.
You glance at it to make sure you are not repeating mistakes. Then you look forward. Because forward is the only direction that still has your name on it.
So Here Is What I Recommend
If regret sits heavy on your chest, buy a hangboard. Or find some other small, hard, boring thing that asks for your full attention. Run the same hill every morning. Practice an instrument until your fingers ache. Write one page every day even if no one reads it.
Do not do it to punish yourself for the past. Do it to train your mind that you can still show up. You can still try. You can still hold on when everything in you wants to let go.
The best time to make different choices was ten years ago. The second best time is right now, with chalk on your hands, standing beneath a small wooden edge, breathing.
You have not missed everything. You have just been collecting experience. And experience, when you finally stop regretting it, becomes something else entirely.
It becomes strength.
Now go hang. One second at a time. Forward is waiting.