Introduction

“Think of the ten things you regret about your life. Now think of a time ten years in the future. Consider some of the things you may regret. Use this to plan your action now. “

This is what I heard recently in a Youtube interview. The context was planning for the future.

I think we also need to ask the question: –

Regret is something that comes into our dialogue all the time. However, I think we need to assess if there may be a more effective and healthy way to have the discussion.

I think we also need to ask the question: –

What are the 10 great things they have done in their life and felt good about – like helping others or making someone’s life better? 

I think we need to look at our life holistically.  

 

Deconstructing regret

Regret is focused on the avoidance of making a mistake. It is focused on what was done incorrectly. When we try to learn lessons from regret – we come up with steps that are geared toward ways to avoid mistakes.  I think our life going forward is not about avoiding loss. Our focus needs to be on achieving the outcome we want to have considered all aspects of our lives.

When we regret – we usually already have the result, we have much more information, and our situations are different. In essence, the action and regret usually stand on altogether different platforms.

Regret is an insult to our earlier self. It tends to identify some decisions as wrong. Our life is a journey. We are limited by our knowledge and understanding of ourselves, our surroundings and a host of other factors. A child is not immature. It is in the state in which it is. In our adolescence – we are not immature. We behave the way do because of our social reality and also our physiological constraints. The Neocortex region is still under development. When we identify someone as incorrect and try to reject them, we fail to accept life in its fullness.

Some people have guilt complexes. Some people tend to hold them responsible even if it is beyond their control. Regret keeps them stuck in that mental frame. In short, it harms them.

Depending on how our life turned out and the situation we are in and the people we are with we have very different types of regret.

For example, if there is serious health – we might regret not eating well 

If children were delinquent – we regret not giving time to our kid

If we do not have enough savings – we did not focus on our careers or ignored all the opportunities we let go of.

In short, regret is nonacceptance. Regret arises when we do not like an outcome in certain situations. Everything has consequences. We need to accept life as It is.

 

Conclusion

Every moment in our life is unique. Hundreds of factors come into play when we make a decision.  Our knowledge, perception, our expectations, biases, perceived possibilities, our constraints, relationships, and environment, are all factors that come into play.

Every action has consequences. Bad is a judgment from a perspective. There are millions of other perspectives from which we can look at the consequences.

Let us try to eliminate it from the discussion as much as we can.  If we are forced into dialogue on regret, let us at once try to look at the other consequences of the action.  If we cannot eliminate regret from the social dialog, we can do one thing.

We can make a personal choice – never to regret anything.