Hindsight is a bit of a bitch. We’re always looking back at the choices we made and thinking about how we could have done better.

With Bitcoin reaching its all-time high the other day, I think back to when I first heard about it many years ago. With prices so low that a few dollars could buy hundreds of Bitcoins, had I dove a little deeper and got into it back then I might have ended up a billionaire.

This is the skewed lens through which we so often view our past decisions. We think about how much better off we would be had we done things differently.

We punish our past selves for not choosing better.

Yet we rarely consider how much worse things could have ended up.

Every decision we make both opens and closes an infinite number of doors. Our lives fork in countless directions with every new moment.

Sure, I could have bought Bitcoin a decade ago and become filthy rich. I could be living on a yacht off the coast of Sardinia, sipping the finest Champagne and snacking on Iranian caviar as I watch Arsenal — the club I just purchased — win the league.

I could also be dead.

An ungodly sum of money in the hands of anyone unprepared for it can have dire consequences. I could have gone off the deep end, picked up a few nasty habits, and been found dead on the floor of my penthouse bathroom with a needle in my arm.

Regret based on the idea of a more positive outcome is dangerous. It’s a sadistic form of optimism that only causes us pain.

And just as contradictory, looking at the downsides that you avoided can be oddly positive.

But it’s not worth wasting the mental energy over “what if.”

Where you are now is all there is.

The choices you made are final.

Don’t torture yourself based on what could have been.