Tuesday's TED Talk: Don't Regret Regret

We should always look forward, not backward, right? What's done is done, so just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Live without regret. This seems to be a cultural value that we all generally buy into.

But maybe regret has its place. In fact, the inability to experience regret is one of the diagnostic characteristics of sociopaths, as Kathryn Schulz explains in the TED Talk that's inspiring me today. We just need to put the right framework around it. 

My Takeaways

• Regret requires both agency and imagination. The more we have of both, the more acute we feel the regret.
• The easier it is to imagine a different outcome, the more we will regret what happened (or didn't happen). We will regret missing a flight by 3 minutes more than we regret missing a flight by 20 minutes. (As a person who has missed three flights in her lifetime, one due to being stuck in a no-way-out drive thru at In-N-Out Burger for an uncharacgteristically long time, I can personally vouch for this fact. :)
• As a society, we are incredibly used to not dealing with life's hard realities. In so many situations, we can undo, unfriend, and unfollow. So it can be all the more jarring when we are faced with a huge regret.
• The "Reply to All" button is one of the biggest regret generators in modern times. I know I've been a victim of the dreaded "Reply to All."
• Regret is useful in that it teaches us that we can do better.
• We CAN make peace with regret by: 1) realizing it's universal, 2) applying humor to the situation, even black humor if necessary, 3) realizing that all things improve with the passage of time, 4) believing that our regrets (like Kathryn's tattoo) are not as ugly as we think they are.

I LOVE this quote: "All of us who have experienced regret that contains real pain and real grief understand that humor, and even black humor, plays a crucial role in helping us survive. It connects the poles of our lives back together, the positive and the negative, and it sends a little current of life back into us."

And this one, "If we have goals and dreams and we want to do our best, and if we love people and we don't want to hurt them or lose them, we should feel pain when things go wrong. The point isn't to live without any regrets. The point is to not hate ourselves for having them."

What are your thoughts about regret?

Comments

[Mel]

Lately, I've been experiencing lots of age-related regret, the things I didn't do when I was young that I probably won't be able to do, now. I didn't go to college, so I didn't have that classic experience of living in a dorm with a roommate. I had other experiences that others didn't have, so I try to see life through my own lens, rather than the lens of comparison to other lives.

Still, I'm currently taking care of my elderly mother in my home, and my commitment to that endeavor restricts my life in many, many ways. It's hard to want to do so many things that simply aren't feasible, and I regret that I didn't do those earlier in life, trying to remain hopeful that I will still have the chance to do some.

I know I won't be able to do them all.

An interesting topic, thought-provoking. Thank you, Angie! I love reading your blog. :)

[Natalie]

i have to tell you, when i read your one about lying my first response was "i don't do that" and then i realized last night that i DO! it's a money thing. i ordered a photo book for maya's birthday for $35 and told Chris "it was $30 bucks". i always knock it down 5-ish dollars. interesting!

[Angie]

Ive discovered the same thing! Once its pointed out, you start realizing all the ways you stretch the truth... p.s. I wont tell Chris ;)

[Angie]

Well theres one thing you certainly WONT regret, and thats the regret many people have about not taking good care of their aging parents. I think the hardest regrets to live with are the ones that involve letting our loved ones down. What youre doing is admirable.

[Laurieann]

My favorite take away: The poor control freaks who realize that "instead of control Z, we have zero control."

Good stuff.

[Holly]

somewhere between 30 and 56, I've learned how to savor those things that used to be regrets. I've learned how to taste the things that seem to be hard at the moment and turn out to be adventures or experiences I would not have had, if I had been more *fill in the blank* (financially well off, faster, more thoughtful). In fact (and I am going to journal about this), near the middle of September this year, I went on a road trip and did not have the time I expected.....but now, a month later, my perspective of it has already changed, for the better.

I think too often we only savor the sweet moments, not the less happy ones and they ALL make up the fabric of what our lives will be/have been.

[Angie]

So well said Holly! Thanks for this insightful comment.