The Obvious take on regret
I’m guessing that I’m getting in that stage of my life that the first great round of regrets is going around. I’m not talking about the kind of; I should or shouldn’t have asked Melissa to the ball. I should or shouldn’t have gone to that party. I should or shouldn’t have spent the entire night studying. I should or shouldn’t have tried shrooms that one time. No, I’m in that phase in which friends have started moving out and making their own homes. Some sooner than me, some later.
Me? At twenty-six I’m currently still living at home. For the past 9 months my girlfriend and I have been completely renovating the house we bought. It’s finally coming together and in a few months we should be able to move in together. A big step, but I’m looking forward to it. Some of my friends have been living alone or with their partner for a few years now. My best friend, two years older than me, only just finished studying and still has some way to go, I fear. With a master’s degree in philosophy, his chances of finding a job in the sector he studied for are… limited.
And that’s the first real stage of regret, isn’t it? Did I pick the right studies? After all, here we are in a third of our lives and its going to be hard to turn it all around now. Did my partner and I make the right choice in living together? Two of my best friends for the past 15 years split up a few months ago. They’d been living together for years. And where do you find yourself then? Suddenly you have a car and an apartment neither of you wants anymore. You’ve ‘wasted’ all those years… Think of where you could be, now. Hell, when I’d thought about my life, I would have thought to have left my parent’s home at the latest two years ago. I’m glad we bought the house, but perhaps we should have …
Therein lies the problem of regret though. I start hearing from friends and family and coworkers about how disheartened some of them are at how life turned out. People who tally up all the ‘good scores’ and ‘al the bad scores’ and who at any point in their lives want to see if they are, on the whole, doing alright and coming out on top. People who shirk away from regret as if it is proof that you are somehow ‘losing the game’.
I find this to be a ridiculous way to look at regret. People see it as something solely negative and try to reduce it because of that reason. Yet it piles on, year after year. But what is regret, when you get down to it?
Regret is nothing but he inevitable side-effect of making a choice. The only ones who can not regret anything, are slaves in the truest sense of the word. They are those who have absolutely no say in how their lives turn out. And while sometimes we like to be told what to do or choose or buy or try… These kinds of slaves are purely hypothetical, non-existent as our choices not to make a choice are always and foremost a choice in themselves. So forget about banning regret. You’re going to have it. And guess what? You’re going to have a quasi-infinite amount of it, if you look at it rationally. After all, for every choice we make one way, we rule out a greater deal of options. Our choices aren’t ‘Art school’ or ‘Studying Law’. They aren’t even ‘Studying’ or ‘not studying’. There are always more options than A and B. So not only are you going to face regret in your life… You’re going to face what seems like an infinite amount of regret for all the paths you didn’t take, stacking up against the one path you did.
And it is because of that that if you ever find yourself ‘tallying the scores’, you already know you’ve lost. Because you have decided to make it into a game in which you face an infinitely stronger and better equipped foe. No matter how happy you might feel in your life, if you think about it honestly; what you have can never stack up against the infinite possibilities of what you could have had. This aligns with my views on the overratedness of being happy, but perhaps that’s a rant for some other time.
What is a better way then? Trying not to think about it? Most people seem to adopt this strategy. Almost equally foolish, I say. Apart from the fact that regret is a valuable teacher… It grows exponentially as the years fly by. You can’t outrun it forever. Its weight will crush you, if you give it any.
No. The best way to look at regret is accepting it for what it is; the eternal cost for having agency in your own life. And because this toll is limitless and unavoidable, it’s not something worth getting hung up over. The point is that whatever you decide, you will face quasi-infinite regret. And precisely because of that, regret is without inherent meaning or weight. It is not some tally of negative and dumb shit you’ve done. It’s solely the proof you were at any and every junction in your life and acted like a thinking, living, breathing human being.
Viewed in this light, you will see that life is not really about coming out on top. It’s not about dragging out the best possible outcome out of your options. It’s not about having the least amount of regrets. Because guess what? That would be something everyone would lose at. At least, if they were intellectually honest about it.
Life is not some grand competition. It’s a journey. It’s not a test. It’s an experience. And if you embrace the inescapability and infinity of regret you won’t spend that journey needlessly looking back. You won’t muddle that experience of the here and now by reaching for a past you can’t feel anymore. And you won’t sit down and start torturing yourself over what could have been and how you could have improved your rankings in the test, instead, you’ll see that in whatever part of your life you are, as long as you have life, your journey can and will continue.
If ever you find yourself unhappy, I hope you do and choose something that will make you feel more complete and fulfilled. And there is nothing wrong with re-evaluating your life. But just realize that your choices always lead you forward. And above all, accept that you can’t fail at life as long as you don’t make it into a test. All you can do truly do is take a different path.
I’m guessing that I’m getting in that stage of my life that the first great round of regrets is going around. I’m not talking about the kind of; I should or shouldn’t have asked Melissa to the ball. I should or shouldn’t have gone to that party. I should or shouldn’t have spent the entire night studying. I should or shouldn’t have tried shrooms that one time. No, I’m in that phase in which friends have started moving out and making their own homes. Some sooner than me, some later.
Me? At twenty-six I’m currently still living at home. For the past 9 months my girlfriend and I have been completely renovating the house we bought. It’s finally coming together and in a few months we should be able to move in together. A big step, but I’m looking forward to it. Some of my friends have been living alone or with their partner for a few years now. My best friend, two years older than me, only just finished studying and still has some way to go, I fear. With a master’s degree in philosophy, his chances of finding a job in the sector he studied for are… limited.
And that’s the first real stage of regret, isn’t it? Did I pick the right studies? After all, here we are in a third of our lives and its going to be hard to turn it all around now. Did my partner and I make the right choice in living together? Two of my best friends for the past 15 years split up a few months ago. They’d been living together for years. And where do you find yourself then? Suddenly you have a car and an apartment neither of you wants anymore. You’ve ‘wasted’ all those years… Think of where you could be, now. Hell, when I’d thought about my life, I would have thought to have left my parent’s home at the latest two years ago. I’m glad we bought the house, but perhaps we should have …
Therein lies the problem of regret though. I start hearing from friends and family and coworkers about how disheartened some of them are at how life turned out. People who tally up all the ‘good scores’ and ‘al the bad scores’ and who at any point in their lives want to see if they are, on the whole, doing alright and coming out on top. People who shirk away from regret as if it is proof that you are somehow ‘losing the game’.
I find this to be a ridiculous way to look at regret. People see it as something solely negative and try to reduce it because of that reason. Yet it piles on, year after year. But what is regret, when you get down to it?
Regret is nothing but he inevitable side-effect of making a choice. The only ones who can not regret anything, are slaves in the truest sense of the word. They are those who have absolutely no say in how their lives turn out. And while sometimes we like to be told what to do or choose or buy or try… These kinds of slaves are purely hypothetical, non-existent as our choices not to make a choice are always and foremost a choice in themselves. So forget about banning regret. You’re going to have it. And guess what? You’re going to have a quasi-infinite amount of it, if you look at it rationally. After all, for every choice we make one way, we rule out a greater deal of options. Our choices aren’t ‘Art school’ or ‘Studying Law’. They aren’t even ‘Studying’ or ‘not studying’. There are always more options than A and B. So not only are you going to face regret in your life… You’re going to face what seems like an infinite amount of regret for all the paths you didn’t take, stacking up against the one path you did.
And it is because of that that if you ever find yourself ‘tallying the scores’, you already know you’ve lost. Because you have decided to make it into a game in which you face an infinitely stronger and better equipped foe. No matter how happy you might feel in your life, if you think about it honestly; what you have can never stack up against the infinite possibilities of what you could have had. This aligns with my views on the overratedness of being happy, but perhaps that’s a rant for some other time.
What is a better way then? Trying not to think about it? Most people seem to adopt this strategy. Almost equally foolish, I say. Apart from the fact that regret is a valuable teacher… It grows exponentially as the years fly by. You can’t outrun it forever. Its weight will crush you, if you give it any.
No. The best way to look at regret is accepting it for what it is; the eternal cost for having agency in your own life. And because this toll is limitless and unavoidable, it’s not something worth getting hung up over. The point is that whatever you decide, you will face quasi-infinite regret. And precisely because of that, regret is without inherent meaning or weight. It is not some tally of negative and dumb shit you’ve done. It’s solely the proof you were at any and every junction in your life and acted like a thinking, living, breathing human being.
Viewed in this light, you will see that life is not really about coming out on top. It’s not about dragging out the best possible outcome out of your options. It’s not about having the least amount of regrets. Because guess what? That would be something everyone would lose at. At least, if they were intellectually honest about it.
Life is not some grand competition. It’s a journey. It’s not a test. It’s an experience. And if you embrace the inescapability and infinity of regret you won’t spend that journey needlessly looking back. You won’t muddle that experience of the here and now by reaching for a past you can’t feel anymore. And you won’t sit down and start torturing yourself over what could have been and how you could have improved your rankings in the test, instead, you’ll see that in whatever part of your life you are, as long as you have life, your journey can and will continue.
If ever you find yourself unhappy, I hope you do and choose something that will make you feel more complete and fulfilled. And there is nothing wrong with re-evaluating your life. But just realize that your choices always lead you forward. And above all, accept that you can’t fail at life as long as you don’t make it into a test. All you can do truly do is take a different path.
"If we go down, we go down together!"
- Your mum, last night, suggesting 69.
![[Image: 41bebac06973488da2b0740b6ac37538.jpg]](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/41/be/ba/41bebac06973488da2b0740b6ac37538.jpg)
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- Your mum, last night, suggesting 69.
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