Count your regrets

and be glad you have them

Lately I’ve been thinking that maybe regret isn’t such a bad thing. I’ve heard others debate that before, but it’s different to think it yourself. When you do, it feels like an original thought. Maybe all this time, regret just had a bad rap. Like the word nice. Describing people or things as nice often comes across as a euphemism for fine or boring. When accompanied by a pause or absent any punctuation, nice can seem like a neutral word indicating there was nothing in particular to insult, but also nothing of note to compliment. Call me crazy but I still think nice is nice. Regret, however, I’m working on.

I have historically been very afraid of regret, of having it. Growing up, I watched how quickly it would roll in to our home, clouding over still moments. It was better not to let things get too quiet or else they’d come pouring down. That won’t be me, I’d think, vowing to be different from those to whom the regrets belonged. I will think through all permutations and combinations in advance, and I will be prepared with the right choice, yes siree. The overthinking part came easy and did indeed help avert some minor crises. But in the cases where my strategy failed I became fearfully indecisive and eventually, regretful anyways. Even with all the preparation in the world, I couldn’t seem to make their rainstorms stop. I’d wonder what I’d missed or if I hadn’t thought long or hard enough. That won’t be me, I’d reiterate. I’d try to do better, be more logical, squirreling away pros and cons like a doomsday prepper. You probably don’t need me to tell you how this part turned out. I am now 38 years old and have plenty of things, big and small, that I wish I had done differently - regrets if you will. But I feel very differently about them, and of late, am increasingly grateful for the sentiment itself.

Before I elaborate, for what it’s worth, I don’t think the ‘no regrets’ approach works either. With rare exception, I find it either lazy, dishonest, or avoidant. Sometimes even arrogant. It’s often a proxy for ‘I don’t reflect on my life’, or ‘I don’t make the space for the discomfort of having been wrong’, or worse, ‘I don’t take the time to consider how other people might have felt’. I hate to say it but I hear it most often from white men or guests on a podcast pitching it as yet another wellness cold plunge happiness hack. I suppose in some ways it makes sense, if you’ve been furnished with abundant opportunity or rarely been made to feel guilty about anything, there’s a lot less there to trigger regret. In my opinion, having the regret is not a waste of time like we’ve heard, it’s the stewing and the simmering in it that is - that is certainly destructive in all of the ways like stagnant flood water caused by too much of that rain. The experience of regret can be a kind of a lesson if we allow it to be, an act of constructive imagination. And like all lessons, we need to find a way to learn them and then, move on. But to not feel it at all? That’s like a kind of hubris saying there’s nothing left for you to be taught.

I haven’t quite nailed it down but I think the source of my gratitude around regret partially comes from a narrative of acceptance and impermanence. Mistakes will happen and are not an indication of an inability to predict them. My willingness to accept their inevitable existence, and that they may lead to a larger feeling of regret, now or in the future, has often been freeing. Plus things are always changing, including me, so I’m bound to miss a variable or two. Then there’s the fact that my regrets have brought some truly joyful things into (and sometimes back into) my life. I have learned to excavate forgiveness for myself buried beneath them. At times, they’ve spurred exponential growth. They’ve even created room to give others more of a benefit of the doubt - if I wished different, maybe they did too? My regrets have also pushed me to make amends in even seemingly small places. I was once confronted with an ugly flashback while dealing with some frustrating last minute cancellations during the final days of planning our wedding. Years prior, when I was young(er) and had a very limited understanding of western wedding norms, I had RSVP’d no and to “have fun” to a bride the Friday of her wedding weekend, via text (I know it’s bad okay! This is a piece about regrets!). In the middle of struggling to re-arrange our table seating and contacting vendors, I texted her to sincerely apologize, recognizing the true error of my ways. It didn’t change what happened but I’d like to think it made things 1% better.

There are of course different types of regrets and some are laden with lead. Author Daniel Pink used a survey of over 19,000 people (and counting) to categorize them into four categories - connection (relationship related), moral (yours or others), foundation (changed the course of your life) and boldness (inaction or missed opportunities). I don’t think I can say which of these weigh heavier, but I’m sure they all feel equally good to let go of.

While I know regrets can sometimes lead to ultimately positive outcomes, it hasn’t made the fear of regret go away, though it has made for a little less analyzing and paralyzing. And sometimes I’m grateful for even that fear. I am fortunate to share a close relationship with my father, who I value with great intensity. He’ll be 76 this year and as he’s aged or as we’ve had to navigate some unique circumstances, I am occasionally consumed by another fear - the fear of losing him. I know when that day comes it will be a catastrophic one, and I don’t want to regret the moments we could have had. And so whenever I can, I Facetime him and screenshot him talking to my son. I have an album collection of them now and love adding to it. It’s being assembled by both my present love and my fear of future regrets - and we’re all better for it.

So count your regrets and be glad you have them. They probably make you nice(r). Spend some quality time with them, be afraid of them even, and then, let them go.

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More from Inside Thoughts ICYMI: Career guilt | Do you have to know sorrow to know kindness? | Where are you from? | Captain’s log | Mama uses good words and bad words | What do we owe each other? | These four walls

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