Am I always a little too late?

I usually take pride in the fact that I am a kind of person who doesn’t get bogged down by failure or setbacks, who always learn from his mistakes or who never regrets anything. I usually come up with statements like "that is what I thought right in that point in time so can’t regret the decision". If you really look at it, these statements are a way to save once face. It’s good to learn from mistakes but the fact that one is making many mistakes isn’t a very good thing. To have the feeling that what you did in the past need not be the best way to go about things, that too often is kind of disturbing. 

I sometimes get the feeling that I am always a little too late. It’s not something recent, it has been there in my mind for quite some time. I feel that quite too often I realize the importance of something only after the opportunity passes. 

Now I feel that I should have been more ambitious when i was in school. Should have taken part in various competitions, should have improved my oratory skills and also my interpersonal skills. Any way since I was gonna get into engineering; I feel that I should have put in the effort and prepared for IIT's or NIT's. I feel that in the kerala entrance exam that I had taken, I should have attempted more number of questions, I knew many questions and didn’t attempt them because i was scared of getting them wrong, doing so would have gotten me a better rank. 

In college I feel that I should have studied some subjects much harder, many of the subjects no matter how hard had I studied wouldn’t have been of much use, but certain subjects had I studied much harder would have done better in college. I regret the fact that I wasn’t a friendly person and didn’t get to know my juniors or seniors well, for that matter even my batch mates. I feel that it was stupid of me to be hung up over a girl for a ridiculously long period of time, I can understand being heart broken, but my case of simply ridiculous. I feel I should have been a more proactive person, should have taken part in a lot more competitions, should have done something for the society. I had 4 years with relatively not much work, should have utilized it better. Not regreting what I didnt do, but I wonder, why is it only after a situation passes, I think I could have done better 

There is of course a positive side to every statement that I made. There is more that meets the eye. It was not like, I just didn’t do it. There were many times I was up against the odds and tried my best to handle the situation But I feel that one should at times be cynical to themselves. My whole argument can be countered by just saying a few things like, destiny or since I didn’t know what was right at that point in time how would i know what to do or there is a time and place for every thing. Having said that, I wonder if I missed the bus one time too many. There is definitely not gonna be an answer to the question.