He said that when he was 10 years old he decided that he wanted to be a world famous martial arts actor. Now he's a 50 year old man living a child's dream.
I don’t think that’s what’s meant. It’s not that he set out to do a thing and achieved it; it’s that he set out to do what a child dreamed of but now he’s a grown man.
Damn it! That is a pretty good measure for maturity. Do you have the self awareness and experience to regret your youthful dreams?
I certainly do. I fixated on car culture at 15. I didn't know I enjoy being a Maker most, or that applied science is the field of the ultimate Maker demigods. If I could go back and explain this to myself, it would likely be deeply fulfilling.
I only barely survived a crash with two cars while riding a bicycle to work. My spine is all messed up and it appears unfixable. I'm professionally incompetent due to the deeply unstable sleep patterns. Sleeping remedies cause inactivity that create further problems. I am the undead trapped in limbo.
I assume that every decision I make I'll regret for what could have been and embrace for what has become. And that's only the small part of the future I get to decide.
I discovered in my midlife that I had a lot of potential careers I'd be good at, which was completely different than the careers I wanted as a kid.
I really wanted to be an astronaut, and my dad was actually in the space program during and after the Apollo program. But my field independence sucks and I'm prone to motion sickness, so no space travel for me.
On the other hand, I'm awesome at research and connecting seemingly unrelated facts, so I could have been a brilliant CIA analyst. I suck at languages, though, which is a requirement for entry.
Aesop's fable of the sour grapes seems fitting here.
If you regret the dreams of your youth, it may just be that you failed to achieve anything and are unwilling to accept your failures. So instead regret ever having dreams.