If you could meet an abandoned version of your future, the conversation might contain envy in both directions.

The life you did not choose would have its own losses, and the person living it would look at yours with the same mixture of longing and relief. Envy in both directions is the honest picture, because every path forecloses others and every path contains things you would not give up. There is no version without a cost.

When you find yourself grieving a road not taken, try filling in its disadvantages honestly rather than comparing your real life to an idealized sketch. And then ask which parts of that abandoned version are still available to you now, in smaller form, because some of them usually are.