I was at a social function recently when a woman remarked, “My whole life is one big regret.” That comment kind of shocked me, as, at least to me, she appeared to have a happy marriage, and her kids are all productive adults. I guess there’s a whole lot going on beneath the surface that I don’t see.
But what is regret? No matter how you define it, it has to do with our feelings about the past, and the one absolute that we know about the past is we can’t change it. We can reflect on it and learn from it, but we can’t change it, so why regret it?
Regret is not the same as understanding that our life might have been smoother had we not made certain mistakes earlier, but every human who has ever lived had made mistakes. The key to a better life is to limit the mistakes we make and to learn from those we do make. To lament over them accomplishes nothing.
Since we can’t change the past but we can affect the future, that is where we should direct our focus. But change is hard, which is why so many people avoid it.
Years ago a recently divorced woman told me that she didn’t know what to do with her life. She was only 32, the marriage lasted only eight years, and she had no children. I suggested she go back to school so that she might find something she liked. She replied that she would be 35 before she graduated. She failed to appreciate the fact that she would be 35 in three years whether she went back to school or not.
It’s rarely too late to make changes to better our lives. Regret, at least to me, seems like such a waste of time. It would be much better to analyze the mistake so as to learn any lessons it offers and then move on. Since the rest of our life will be lived in the future, isn’t that where the focus should be?