For a long time, I believed that once you make a decision in life, you should stand by it.
Not just believe in it.
Stand by it.
I used to tell this to a lot of people around me.
If you decide to leave a company, leave.
If you submit your resignation and receive your relieving letter, don't cancel it just because someone offers you a little more money.
If you have decided to move on because of work pressure, salary, personal reasons, or simply because you feel it is time for a change, accept that decision and move forward.
Because, according to me, if you keep changing your decision based on every small situation, people may start seeing you as weak.
I genuinely believed that.
And I told many people the same thing.
But life has a strange way of teaching us the lessons we once gave to others.
And eventually, it taught me that lesson too.
The Decision I Made
Last December, I left the company I had been working for.
It wasn't an easy decision.
I had spent almost five years there.
Over those years, I had built friendships, relationships, memories, and connections.
Some of my colleagues were more than colleagues to me.
They were friends.
Some felt like family.
When I decided to leave, many people around me genuinely felt bad.
My friends missed me.
My colleagues talked about how I was leaving after being there for so long.
There were emotions involved.
And honestly, I felt them too.
But at that point, I had made my decision.
I was going to move on.
I had convinced myself that one chapter of my life was ending and another one was about to begin.
I thought I was doing the right thing.
And then life happened.
The Confusion After Leaving
After leaving, I started questioning myself.
Was my decision right?
Did I make a mistake?
Should I have stayed?
Should I have waited a little longer?
Should I have tried something else?
Those questions kept coming back.
And eventually, because of my confusion and what I now consider a wrong decision, I went back.
I rejoined the same company.
The very company I had decided to leave.
The very decision I had once told others not to reverse...
I reversed it myself.
And honestly, that is one of the biggest decisions in my life that I regret.
I Have Made Many Mistakes
I have made a lot of mistakes in my life.
I know that.
But I don't regret every mistake I've made.
Some mistakes teach you.
Some mistakes make you stronger.
Some mistakes help you understand yourself better.
Some mistakes simply become memories.
But this one feels different.
Leaving the company and then going back to the same place is something I still think about.
Sometimes I wonder:
What if I had just accepted that the chapter was over?
What if I had continued moving forward?
What if I had allowed myself to experience the uncertainty that comes after leaving something familiar?
Maybe my personal life would have been different.
Maybe my professional life would have been different.
Maybe I would have been in a completely different position today.
I'll never know.
And that's probably the hardest part.
We Don't Always Miss the Place
When I left, I was thinking about the five years I had spent there.
The memories.
The friendships.
The comfort.
The familiarity.
The feeling of being part of something.
I thought:
"We have been here for so long. We have built such a strong bond. It feels like a family. How can I just walk away from all of this?"
So I went back.
But life doesn't always remain the way we remember it.
That's something I learned the hard way.
When you leave a place, you change.
The people there change.
The relationships change.
The environment changes.
And sometimes, the place you return to is no longer the place you remember leaving.
That was my mistake.
I was returning to the place I remembered.
But the reality had already changed.
The People I Thought Would Always Be Close
When I left, many people were close to me.
We had good relationships.
We laughed together.
We worked together.
We spent years together.
I thought those relationships would remain exactly the same.
But after returning, things felt different.
Some relationships became distant.
Some people looked at me differently.
Some things that once felt natural no longer felt the same.
And slowly, something started bothering me.
I began feeling like the decision to come back itself was a mistake.
The place I once thought of as a family started feeling like just a workplace.
And that realization hurt.
Because sometimes the pain isn't about losing a place.
It's about realizing that the version of that place you loved no longer exists.
Was Changing My Decision Really Weakness?
For years, I believed changing a decision meant weakness.
Today, I don't think it is that simple.
Sometimes changing a decision is necessary.
Sometimes circumstances change.
Sometimes new information comes in.
Sometimes we realize that the decision we made was wrong.
And sometimes, we simply need to choose a different path.
There is nothing wrong with that.
But there is a difference between changing a decision because you have gained clarity and changing a decision because you are afraid of what comes next.
I think I confused the two.
Maybe I didn't return because the company was necessarily the right place for me.
Maybe I returned because I was uncomfortable with the uncertainty of moving forward.
And that is something I wish I had understood back then.
If I Could Go Back
If I could go back to that December...
I wouldn't necessarily tell myself to stay or leave.
I would ask myself a different question:
"Why did you make this decision in the first place?"
I would remind myself of everything I had thought about before leaving.
I would separate emotions from the decision.
I would ask whether I was going back because I genuinely wanted to rebuild something...
or because I was afraid to start something new.
Because sometimes we don't return to a place because it is right for us.
Sometimes we return because it is familiar.
And familiarity can feel a lot like safety.
A Lesson I Never Expected to Learn
I once told people:
"Once you make a decision, stand by it."
Today, I would add something to that statement.
Stand by your decision, but don't be blindly loyal to it.
Give your decision a real chance.
Don't change your direction every time things become uncomfortable.
But at the same time, don't stay somewhere forever just because you once decided to be there.
Review your decisions.
Understand why you made them.
Accept the consequences.
And if you eventually realize that you were wrong, have the courage to admit it.
Changing your mind isn't automatically weakness.
And staying stubborn isn't automatically strength.
Sometimes strength is knowing when to stay.
Sometimes strength is knowing when to leave.
And sometimes strength is accepting that you made the wrong decision.
I Can't Change What I Did
I can't go back and change what happened.
I can't undo the decision.
I can't rewrite that chapter.
But I can learn from it.
And maybe that's what mistakes are really for.
Not to punish ourselves forever.
Not to keep asking, "What if?"
But to understand ourselves a little better.
I made the decision to leave.
Then I made the decision to return.
I don't like the second decision.
I wish I had handled things differently.
But it happened.
And now, the only thing I can control is what I do next.
Maybe That's What Growing Up Really Means
Growing up isn't about making perfect decisions.
It is about becoming someone who can take responsibility for imperfect ones.
We will make wrong decisions.
We will change our minds.
We will trust the wrong people.
We will return to places we should have left behind.
We will sometimes choose comfort over growth.
And sometimes, we'll realize it only after the decision has already been made.
That's life.
The important thing is not to stay trapped inside one mistake.
A wrong turn doesn't have to become the entire journey.
One Thing I Know Now
If I ever give someone the same advice again, I will say it differently.
Don't change your decision just because things became difficult.
Don't go back just because the future feels uncertain.
Don't abandon a path because you are temporarily uncomfortable.
But also...
Don't be afraid to admit that you were wrong.
Don't stay somewhere just because you once promised yourself you would.
And don't confuse stubbornness with strength.
Because the real strength isn't always in standing by the decision you made.
Sometimes...
the real strength is accepting that you were wrong, learning from it, and having the courage to move forward anyway.
I can't change the decision I made.
But I can make sure that the next one is wiser.
And maybe that's enough.
Some decisions become regrets.
Some regrets become lessons.
And some lessons quietly change the person we become.
— Kali
0 Comments
Thanks for the comment