This week, Hidden Brain, one of my favorite podcasts-slash-public-radio-programs, explored the topic of regret with a researcher and head of an academic “regret lab.” The program discussed the various positive and negative consequences of regret.
I think I’ve reached a point in my life when I’m able to put most of my regrets to rest. Yes, there are opportunities I missed, chances I wish I’d taken, different paths I could have chosen, and times I acted selfishly or treated others poorly. The last category is, of course, the hardest to get over, because it’s regret combined with guilt. But we can’t undo what we’ve done in the past, and at some point we have to forgive ourselves and commit to behaving better in the future, now that we know better.