My two favorite keys on my laptop are “command” and “z.” When pressed at the same time, whatever mistake I just made disappears. If I typed a bad sentence, I can simply undo it. If I accidentally delete a picture in InDesign, I can immediately bring it back with those two precious keys.

The ability to instantly undo something after it goes awry is everywhere in our world, and we take advantage of these opportunities every day.

When I’m surfing the Internet and I accidentally navigate away from the home page, a simple click of the “back” button brings me to the previous page – exactly where I want to be, as if I never left.

When I’m watching a movie (which, to be honest, doesn’t happen often) and I miss an important scene because I was distracted, I can rewind the DVD to hear the line I missed with a gentle push of the rewind button on my remote control.

When I’m filling in a scantron with my sharpened number-two Ticonderoga Black during a test, and I bubble in “A” instead of “C,” I simply erase the wrong answer and replace it with the correct one.

Unfortunately, life does not come with any sort of undo button – or at least I haven’t found it yet. When I forget an assignment, I can’t push a button to go back and get more time. When I make a mistake in judgment, I can’t rewind and change my decision. And when I say something hurtful, it’s never really erased.

Instead of relying on a magical “edit-undo” combination in our everyday lives, we are forced to deal with the repercussions of our mistakes whether they are big or small, serious or lighthearted.

An even better solution, however, is to play the offense, double-checking everything to make sure it’s done the first time. This semester, I’m trying harder to do things right the first time, and when that doesn’t work out, then I’ll deal with things to the best of my ability and move on.

Everyone has regrets, and everyone can get caught up in the past. But everyone can also move forward.