I Departed From Regrets Long Ago

I can’t regret what I never really wanted

Photo by Mateusz Sałaciak/Image designed by author

For the life of me I do not understand regrets. It could be that I am not old enough or that I am too old already. It could be that fundamentally, having a regret is subjective. There are those who regret what they did and those who regret what they never did. Then there are those unlucky enough to regret every damn thing, including what they should have done, did and did not do. As for me, I prefer to declare no regrets today, but I know even that declaration is bull.

A nationally representative study, which asked 270 Americans to describe a significant life regret, found the most commonly reported regrets involved romance (19.3%), family (16.9%), education (14.0%), career (13.8%), finance (9.9%), and parenting (9.0%) (Morrison & Roese, 2011) — From Psychology Today

Which is worse?

Regrets over what you did —

Or what you didn’t do?

According to PsychologyToday.com, “decisions of inaction” tend to cause great regrets. We may regret never taking that job offer years ago, or we may regret not truly expressing how we feel to someone but more often than not, we regret putting our happiness on the backburner. This oftentimes involve relationships as that is the purest and most common of human needs.