Regret

Regret is a "mature" and complex emotion. Regret requires at least somewhat sustained reflection over time to ossify into a palpable feeling. Most interesting to me is that regret is nearly always born of thought, of intellectual rumination, rather than the more visceral emotions like happiness, or even heartbreak. However, the more emotional version of regret is guilt.

Regret is deeply internal. Most people hide their regrets like their good wines, and fear the day that sink into sharing them. Mostly, this is because the more externally-derived form, shame, is impossible to contain. Public information takes on a life of its own.

Regret is also a “high class” emotion. One needs to have a certain level of intellectual wherewithal to review past decisions and actions. Only upon doing so would one consider the permutations and combinations of events that could have created a better future. Of course, there’s no guarantees, and hindsight is 20/20, so often people wish they could change their past without really knowing if that change would have been better at all.

Regret also requires time, which conjures a connection with wisdom. As I age, I find that life’s ups and downs teach lessons far more powerfully, and painfully, than any textbook.

Interestingly, people uniformly acknowledge regret for both actions taken as well as actions not taken. Life’s errors of commission seem to have an inherent reward based solely on the action and will, while the errors of omission (regretting that which you did not do) have the added pain of inaction, of paralysis, of the odor of death.

There’s an old proverb, “A man is not old until his regrets take the place of his dreams”. I agree with it, and proudly consider myself old based on it. With no regrets.