Name: Joe Kita
Background: In “Another Shot: How I Relived My Life in Less Than a Year” (Rodale, $21.95), journalist Joe Kita describes 20 regrets he had about his life as he turned 40 and how he tried to undo them. The relived events included trying out again for his high school basketball team, tracking down the owner of a car he wished he hadn’t sold and writing to a woman on whom he had had a crush in college.
Q–What does regret mean to you?
A–For starters, it’s not the same as having a dream. A dream is something you’ve always wanted to do, where a regret is something you’ve already done but in an unsatisfactory way. To live out a dream can be powerful and exciting and fun, but living out a regret goes even deeper.
Q–Of the regrets you write about, some are over what might be called a failure of nerve. Are those the most painful?
A–The ones that had the biggest impact on me are the ones I viewed as mistakes, like not telling my father I loved him. Some were things where I had the opportunity to do something and I screwed up, like trying out for my high school basketball team.
Q–Other things just didn’t pan out the way you wanted, like your wedding.
A–Yes, there are different categories–regrets of love, regrets of career. Regrets where–the wedding would be one of these–I just got swept up by the momentum of the situation and lost control of it.
Q–Which replay was most satisfying for you?
A–On a purely visceral level, finally making the basketball team. When I came out of the coach’s office, I felt as if I’d made the winning shot at the Boston Garden. But when I finally got to say things I wanted to say to my father, that had a powerful effect on me.
Q–How did you set that one up?
A–My father died very suddenly of a heart attack in his sleep when he was 61, so I never got to say “Thank you,” never got to say “I love you.” The best way I could come up with, to relive it, was to go to a psychic. I don’t necessarily believe in psychics, but this lady had a very good reputation, had helped the Philadelphia police on numerous occasions, so I spent an hour with her.
There were times when I had goosebumps from things she was saying. She knew nothing about me other than my first name, but some of the things she said were right on and made me feel my father was there in the room. At other times, the information was way off, and my skepticism returned.
But regardless of whether my dad was in the room or not, I finally got to say goodbye, and that has had a big effect on me. That’s what this is all about, gaining closure on things that gnaw on you.
Q–It shows how internal regrets are. They’re not about what’s actually going on in the world; they’re about what’s in your head.
A–It’s bizarre what bits of your past do pop up in your head, like little prairie dogs. Like this girl I had a crush on in college. I mean, I’m happily married, I have kids, and I’m not obsessed with this girl. But every now and then you find yourself thinking of past loves or what might have been. You never know what might haunt you.
Q–Does everyone have regrets?
A–Some people tell me they don’t, but I don’t believe them.
Q–It’s such a happy thought, thinking you can have another chance to make things right. What did you learn from reliving these episodes in your life?
A–Take this girl from college. I was a freshman and so was she. She was absolutely beautiful. She came up to me and said, “Hi. You look just like James Caan, and I adore James Caan.” And I froze. I couldn’t say anything to her then or for the remaining four years of school. This always stuck with me, so I decided to try to track her down–with the blessing of my wife, of course. I got her name and address through the university and wrote her a letter explaining who I was, that I was writing this book and I wanted to know, did she remember saying this to me?
Q–And?
A–She never wrote back.
Q–You never heard from her?
A–Well, I was on “Oprah” recently and the producers tracked her down. Unbeknownst to me, she was in the studio audience. When she stood up, I turned beet red. I felt totally embarrassed, but I said, “Do you remember saying this to me?” And she said, “Absolutely. I always wished you had asked me out.”
Her husband was sitting next to her in the audience, my wife was in the audience, it was a bit uncomfortable.
She said she hadn’t replied to my letter because she’s married, with kids, and where was this leading? It was a strange letter to get after all these years.
Q–How did contact with her make you feel?
A–You hear so much these days about how important it is to live in the present, how it’s one way to beat stress and remain focussed. Well, I always found that a very difficult thing to do. I’ve tried meditation and really never succeeded. But by reliving these regrets, I could put my past behind me. And now I live much more in the present. Like this wacky thing with this girl. I know now, after 20 years, that something could have happened there. That’s enough for me. I can stop worrying about it. I know that sounds weird, but it’s very fulfilling.
Q–Because you know you could have gone down that road?
A–It’s mind blowing to consider all the decisions you make on a daily basis that can have major impact on your life. If I had responded to what she said all those years ago, who knows what might have happened? We could have gotten married, had totally different kids.
Doing this book has made me a lot more thoughtful. Yogi Berra once said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” When I come to a major decision in my life now, I go a little bit down the left fork to see what might happen, then down the right, because when I make this decision, I don’t want to regret it later.
Q–Isn’t there often more than one right answer?
A–Yes, but I also think the best answer is usually what your first, gut instinct is. When I look back on all these regrets I had, if I had been smart enough to follow my heart, I would have made the right decision.
