How to Deal With Regret

A great source of calamity lies in regret and anticipation; therefore a person is wise who thinks of the present alone, regardless of the past or future.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH

Everyone feels regret. This is because everyone makes mistakes. Even the most successful and accomplished people in the world can point to mistakes they made along the way. In fact, I think it is impossible to live a life without regrets. Mistakes are part of the process of living. Anyone who says they don't have regrets is lying.

Regret serves a useful function. It keeps us from repeating errors. Regret is the essential element in learning and education, and it is indispensable. But when people talk about regret, they aren't talking about these sorts of errors and the feelings that go with it. Having a dead battery in the morning brings with it the regret of leaving the headlights on the night before. But that feeling vanishes quickly once the jumper cables come out. The regret people deal with and struggle with is much deeper than merely wishing they had avoided a mistake. This regret is deeper and more damning. This regret is dissatisfaction with the present.

The conventional wisdom is that regret is something to do with the past, but this is incorrect. Regret is about the present. Consider Aron Ralston. Aron went out in a canyon, got his arm stuck between a literal rock and a hard place, and had to cut his arm off to survive. Does Aron have any regrets? Probably. But it is hard to think of him as an unhappy person or that his life is now ruined because he lost a portion of a limb. I doubt he goes out in the wild without letting someone know where he is now. But he doesn't seem bothered by any lasting regrets.



Now, Aron wrote a book about his experience and this led to a movie. But if you came to me and offered me a million dollars to cut off part of my arm, I would turn you down. I think Aron would, too. Would a million dollars help alleviate the regret? Certainly, it would. But I think even without the million dollars or more, a guy like Aron and others like him have no trouble moving on in their lives. They have no lasting regrets.

Lasting regret is fundamentally dissatisfaction with the present. It isn't hating something you did in the past. It is hating where you are right now. This may be linked to a past event, but the past event is only incidental. It isn't the fundamental cause of the regret.

I find that people with regret would have regret no matter what they did or how it turned out. Their lives suck and will always suck. This is because they are always thinking of how much better their lives would be if they had chosen X instead of Y. This alternative life exists in a parallel dimension to their own, and they can see this life even if they aren't living it. Of course, this is just a figment of the imagination. This is because that life has its regrets as well. We merely imagine it as being perfect when no life is perfect.

The cure for regret is to be satisfied with the present. You either accept the life you are currently living, or you change your life to become what you want it to be. Either way, the only way to escape regret is to destroy this alternative life you have built for yourself in your mind. It isn't real. It doesn't exist. It never did.

The only life you have is the one you have right now. One day, that life will end, and your only regret then will be the time wasted on regret. Stop living in the past and live in the present. Anything else is living in a fantasy that doesn't exist.

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