WE ALL HAVE REGRETS DON'T MAKE NOT WRITING ONE OF YOURS!

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Birjees S Hussain: Regrets are the stuff of life

They say that opportunity knocks only once. Are you as regretful as Sean Connery or Christian Bale are? Do you wish you’d done B instead of A? Did an opportunity present itself but you ignored or turned it down because it didn’t seem right for you at the time?

It appears many people have regrets of this nature. Sean Connery regrets not taking the role of Gandalf in the movie Lord of the Rings because he did not understand the role. He also turned down the role of Morpheus in The Matrix. And on the subject of The Matrix did you know that the lead role which was played by Keanu Reeves was initially offered to Will Smith?

Christian Bale was offered the role of Steve Jobs but declined due to other commitments. Molly Ringwald was offered the role of Pretty Woman but turned it down because she was not comfortable with the concept of the story. In fact, Molly’s mother refused to even show her the script. Other actresses who declined the role were Meg Ryan and Michelle Pfeiffer which eventually went to Julia Roberts. And did you know that the role of Indiana Jones was initially offered to Tom Selleck who turned it down due to prior commitments with Magnum? The role, as we know, eventually went to Harrison Ford.

But you know what, normal, everyday people like us also feel regret at not grabbing an opportunity when it presents itself. And just like the celebrities, it usually relates to a job opportunity or a chance to live abroad, both of which you might deny because you weren’t sure it was the right move to make at the time.

Several years ago, before I started writing for The Gulf Today, I met the Managing Editor of a very prominent financial magazine in the UAE. I was hoping he might give me a role or, at the very least, some freelance work. But at the time, I hadn’t written as much as I have done now so I had very little published material to show him.

Therefore, in order to ascertain my competency he decided to give me a writing assignment. He gave me the subject of the article and the areas the topic was to cover. It was a financial article.

During the meeting this editor told me that if he liked the article, he’d publish it in his magazine and if he REALLY liked it, he would offer me more. What that more was he didn’t say... and I didn’t ask. In fact, I rather got the impression that he himself wasn’t sure what that something was.

Nevertheless I was intrigued by the unspoken offer and suspected it might be a regular freelance contributor’s assignment for the magazine. To cut a long story short, I submitted the article and he and I met again. At the next meeting he advised me he would publish it because he was impressed with the way I handled a financial related article.

He then offered me a job as Deputy Editor, saying that I did a far better job of structuring and writing the article than his existing deputy editor was doing. I wasn’t sure about the job because the salary was, how can I put it, not what I was expecting for that kind of position. The Editor tried to explain that he was giving me the opportunity to learn about the financial world and a chance to rise in the field of journalism. I still turned him down. Needless to say, he was quite miffed with me.

Now like Sean Connery and Christian Bale, did I regret not accepting the role of Deputy Editor? Considering the stresses of life that I recently underwent, I would have to say yes … a little.

But hindsight is 20-20. If we knew then what we know now, we’d make all the right decisions, wouldn’t we? But life is not like that. We are not supposed to know what will happen in the future.

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