Letter Regret?

One of the more thought-provoking questions I get asked during the Q&A after I complete a speaking presentation is, “do you ever regret sending any of the letters you’ve written?”

The first time someone asked me that I was taken aback. It just goes to show that people’s minds works so differently. I guess when an audience member is contemplating writing letters of gratitude themselves, and potentially bowled over by the fact that I have written 225 such letters, they are curious about the permanence of these relationships, and if circumstances change over the course of time.

The honest answer is, I do not regret any of the letters I have written. This is not to say that some of my relationships with letter recipients haven’t changed, and not always for the better. There has even been, for lack of a better term, a “falling out“ or two.

Far more common is just the distancing between two individuals, be it time, place, circumstance. The easiest way to think about it is that your best friend today might not have been of your best friend 10 years ago, or 20 years ago, and you might have friends today that you were unacquainted with several years in the past. Just the nature of life, particularly when your circumstance allow you to meet and interact with many different individuals from all walks of life and circumstance.

What I can say definitively is, I have never regretted writing a letter at the time that I wrote it. All the letters are dated, and my feelings, emotions and thoughts of gratitude were honest and transparent as I wrote, and then sent the letter. They are testament of a certain time and place, and I am happy I expressed my feelings how I did, and when I did.