Do you feel you have wasted a significant chunk of your time?

Did you take what seemed to be a promising path, only to view it as a mistake?

Are you wondering what will you do next?

It would be great if there is a straight line between where you are and what you want in life. While there is a blessed few who pulled that off, I suspect the vast majority realize that life doesn’t come with a road map, let alone a guarantee.

But life is not linear. And that’s a good thing. Because it encourages us to see ourselves in positive ways:

First, we are still pursuing. You’ve seen those movies where the hero sets out on a quest. Along the way, he encounters detours, dead ends, and setbacks. The payoff comes when the hero, against all odds, got what he wanted.

Now, we don’t want such movies to skip all the conflict and go straight to the happy ending. Where’s the fun in that? In the same way, our wrong turns are part of a grander story: your quest to the life you aspire for. Accept the dry spells as part of the journey and keep your eye on the destination.

Second, we are still growing. The reality is that our life goals can change over time. Perhaps your dissatisfaction means that your values have shifted or deepened. The classic example is that when we are young, we pursue success; but as we get older, we crave for significance.

So when you find yourself asking “is this all there is?”, perhaps what you have invested time and effort on was a good move given who you were in the past. But you have matured in the process. You have come to view yourself, people, and life in a new way. Now, it’s time for new directions.

Third, we are still learning. If you are being haunted by a poor decision you’ve made, think of it as a valuable lesson. Thomas Edison failed 10,000 times while inventing the light bulb, but he famously said, “I have not failed 10,000 times—I’ve successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.”

But here’s a catch. It is not true that we learn from experience. We learn when we reflect on our experience. Someone can go through years of experience and never become a better person out of it. So redeem that difficult phase of your life by asking questions such as “What is this experience teaching me? What is this saying about myself? What will I do differently next time?””

If we are lamenting over our past or worrying about our future, take heart. We may feel that we should have zigged when we zagged, waited for a better moment, or thought things through. We will have our shares of ups and downs, epiphanies and letdowns, peaks and valleys.

That is life: it is not linear. But we can keep on pursuing, growing, and learning. Someday, when we finally grasp what we have set out for, we will look back and realize that our missteps were actually signposts. And instead of drowning in regret, we will swell up with gratitude.