How do we measure a life?

How do we measure a life?
Is it is hours lived?
Deeds accomplished?
People effected?
Memories?
Regrets?

Ah, regrets, an idea to encompass all others.
The word unsaid and the one that should never have been uttered.
The action untaken and the one you wish you had never contemplated.
The relationship kept alive far past the time it should have died.
The relationship that never was for lack of a beginning.

Can we cast aside regret and instead embrace satisfaction?
Can satisfactions experienced outweigh the regrets we have accumulated?
Upon which side of the coin does our mind dwell?
Are we balanced creatures or beings of chaos and change?

My most poignantly remembered regrets most often rest upon the sea of relationships never attempted and the ones that lasted too long.

There was the girl I didn’t walk all the way back to her dorm room,
and the one I never asked to the ballet.

There was the one I stayed with long after love had fled,
and the one who I missed out on knowing as a result.

Where—who—might I be now but for these things I regret?