A Piece of My Mind

A Piece Of My Mind

Regret

Regret is the negative emotion experienced when learning that an alternative course of action would have resulted in a more favorable outcome.

wikipedia

I voted for Hillary in '16.

I don't regret it.

But I regret a lot of things I've done.

Mistakes I've made.

I chose to be a Mets fan. That has made me a party of staggering ineptitude.

I once called in a bomb threat in high school. It kind of branded me in a way that exists even today.

I signed up for Facebook. That transformed me into an algorithm that flooded me with memes, friend requests from people I didn't know and opened me up for hacking and political manipulation.

I sold a '61 Imperial and a '65 Galaxie convertible when I moved to Florida. Some regrets will never die.

I didn't take Missy to the vets soon enough when she had her tumor and needed to be put down. I was selfish and blind to her needs.

I regret selling the place I had in North Henderson. They were some happy times, but a guy without his family ain't much.

  

  

Regret is one of those things that happen regularly in life and there is simply no avoiding it. We are flawed vessels. Incomplete but brimming with hope that someday we will be finished. We won't be. In my introverted case, every interaction becomes a challenge to be funny enough, make someone feel good for the encounter, and all too often, in my review process, failing miserably.

If you Google 'regret and how to cope' you will find page after page of psychobabble, strategies, and lists, ad nauseum. Doctors of all stripes, psychologists, therapists, and straight out know-nothing bloggers like myself offer remedies to get past regret. Many items on those lists will ask you to look to the future and minimize the past. Try Cognitive Therapy to examine the feelings of inadequacy. Use failings as a teaching moment. Embrace impermanence. Focus on things you can control. You know, crap like that.

Well, I'd like to offer my own remedy for regret. After almost a lifetime of living with them, studying them, creating more, and wishing them away, I think I have discovered the answer. Here it is, are you ready?

Live with it, there ain't a thing you can do about it.

Regret is kind of like that juicy piece of fat on a great steak. We'll likely avoid it but it was part of what made the meat taste so good. There is a juicy piece of fat on most everything. There was a TV show years ago that had a great line. It went something like this: why is there death? To make the living part so much more important. Alas, regret makes all of our good actions and intentions that much more important. Regret is just a natural byproduct of our actions. Incomplete vessels and all that stuff, again.

Of course, there are varying degrees of regret, too. I don't want you to think that regret is only reserved for simple, daily interactions. Now we have moved into another territory, and that is choices we make. Our choices are the engine that creates regret, right? If I am hiking and come to a fork in the road and I take the path least travelled, I may be rewarded with a singular and solitary transcendent experience. Or I may fall off a cliff into a ravine and die. The poor souls who signed up with Jim Jones expected a haven of peace and communion with God. Sadly, they came to regret their decision.

Simply put, choices beget good and bad. We don't write articles on how to live with good, so why worry excessively about those time when our choices are wrong. We live with our good and bad, a perpetual balancing act that keeps us faintly aware of our failings yet exceedingly hopeful for positive outcomes.  Of course, when that balancing act gets out of whack and the regret overpowers all other thoughts, then we have a serious problem.

But for we everyday folk, here is my list of things to do about regret.

1.  Stop analyzing the past.  It won't change anything. 

2.  When possible, lasso regret and wrestle it to the ground.  Find humor in it - making a joke out of it is as good a band aid as any.

3.  Stop trying to figure out how we feel.  That is like dissecting a frog.  It may be momentarily interesting but you'll still have a mess on your hands when you are finished.  And the frog will still be dead.

4.  Stop trying so hard.  Don't plan.  Don't search.  Don't decide.  

5.  When all else fails, try a Bloody Mary and a cigar.  Or a beer and popcorn.  Better than an old bloggers foggy attempt at profundity.