Regret is considered one of the “minor” emotions. Easily eclipsed in the literature in favor of the flashier emotions such as anger, fear, and joy.
But regret seeps in through the cracks in our lives, and if not acknowledged and understood, can destroy us.
I have heard it said that we only regret what we did not do, but that is east to prove false. I can think of plenty of things a person could do and then regret. Sometimes for good reason. Jumping off that bridge. Eating that warm mayonnaise. Joining that angry mob.
But I would like to turn to the useless regrets. Useless because a choice was called for and no one could know all the possible results.
We humans have a problem with feeling out of control, and not knowing something important triggers this need for control. We want to KNOW the future, and believe we can know what would have been, if only...
But this is a delusion based on the need for certainty. We can't know what will happen, until it does. Or what would have happened if we had made another choice. We can only know what actually did happen and what is happening now. At any given moment there are thousands of ghost time lines going into the past, ghosts of the lines we did not follow.
These are forever invisible to us. So, when we say "if only I had done X instead of Y, we are living in our imaginations.
For example, if we say, "I should have moved to NYC when I had the chance" we imagine a perfect line that may not have really existed. Maybe that line actually held an early death or a terrible accident. But we can never know.
In my life there are two regrets of this type. When I was 16 I was running around California looking for a good landing spot.
I met a guy who suggested Boulder, CO and we set out hitchhiking. But we were busted in Reno. Because I was underage they put me on a plane back to my parents, with a layover in Denver.
My regret is getting on the connecting flight. I was in Denver. I could have taken a city bus to Boulder. Instead, I went home for two months then back to California.
The years in California held plenty of heartbreak and I always regretted getting on that plane. Boulder in 1972 was wide open. But there is no way to know what it would have held for me.
The other regret is not having the child the one time I was pregnant. My child, which I imagine as a son, is helpful, intelligent, talented. A golden boy living only in my imagination.
But what if I somehow raised an addict or sociopath? Or just a depressive man whom I could not help.
Either one is possible, whatever my regret tells me.
The present moment also holds thousands of lines going into the future. We can make some assumptions about these lines, and influence them with our behavior.
For example, if we are heavy smokers we may be on a timeline that holds lung cancer if we continue. But, we will never know all of the variables that the choices we make will lead us to. And there are wild cards. So we must make our choices with a certain blindness.
And yet, choose we must...
This is good to remember, both when we are regretting things in the past where we made the best choices we could with the information we had, and when we are considering the future. It is the state of things on Earth, and, like death, it is inescapable. All you can do is your best with what you have.
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I hear you and I appreciate your honesty.
I don't regret terminating my pregnancy as a child. I always thought I would have a child later. Later, after 2 miscarriages and being told I couldn't have children, I was sad. Yet, I still don't regret my earlier decision. However, what led to my pregnancy... that haunted me for years. Not regret so much as shame. I finally learned to forgive myself and to accept that I was a different person then, responding to my environment.
I am not being funny when I say that the only regret I have in my life (and yes, I've done many stupid things) is that I sold my saxophone after high school to help fund my move to San Francisco. Ridiculous. I only got $140 for a beautiful instrument that my parents paid $700 for used. Stupid. If I had kept it, I would have undoubtedly played it over the years, just as I do my maple & ivory-tipped recorder. Folks always say, "Go buy one now!" No, that's not the same thing. No sentimental value. Plus, now I would have to learn all over again.
Alas.
Ahhh...regret...yes. So easy to look back at the past and think what if. I wrote my memoir (soon to hopefully be published) to my unborn daughter...an abortion and a tubal ligation prevented her from being. The young can be so arrogant and sure of themselves. I know I was. I don't regret the abortion. I wasn't ready to have a child. But the tubal ligation? Yes. It was so unnecessary and reactive. Thank you for your thoughts and reflections. I just subscribed.