There was once a man who loved to go fishing. Whenever he had free time he would take off to one of his favorite fishing spots. In fact, he loved his fishing trips so much that he often neglected his business and family responsibilities in order to get in a little extra trip or two. He was often found missing at work related meetings and family gatherings with no explanation.
Early one Sunday morning, the man got up early and headed to one of his favorite fishing spots. He drove for some time anticipating the peaceful time alone and the excitement of the nibble, the bite and the catch! He arrived near a beautiful lake. He parked his car, grabbed his gear and walked a long trail for about an hour down to his perfect spot! He had been fishing only a few minutes when he noticed rather ominous clouds gathering rather quickly.
Suddenly there began a down pour of very heavy rain. Looking for some kind of shelter from the storm, he saw a hollow log not too far from where he was fishing. He made his way to the log and crawled inside to wait out the storm. While he was laying in the log, the rhythm of the rain falling against the old wood of the log became hypnotic and soothing to him. It wasn't long before he fell asleep...
After some time, the man awoke, looked out the end of the log and could see that the sun was shining again. Anxious to get back to his fishing, the man attempted to crawl out of the log only to find that he could not move. He struggled and struggled but could not budge at all! While he had been sleeping, the old hollow log had absorbed the water from the rain and in doing so had become swollen thus trapping the man inside. The more he tried to get free it seemed the tighter he was stuck. He shouted for help several times and then realized that he was miles from ear shot of anyone. He also realized that no one knew he had gone fishing that morning and, in addition, he had never told anyone about this particular special fishing spot.
After some time he concluded he would probably die there in the log. He began thinking about his funeral, all the people that would be there, how big the funeral would be and so on. This was shortly interrupted with thoughts of all the times he had promised to do things for others and then not followed through because he went fishing. He thought of the family gatherings he missed because of fishing and only thinking of himself. He thought more and more of all the little things he could have done but didn't because he wanted to do what HE wanted to do first.
The more he thought about these things, the smaller he began to feel... in fact, after some time he began feeling smaller, and smaller so much so that his was able to stand up and walk out of the log without any problem. Some times we need to reevaluate our priorities. Regret can make us SMALL!