Curious?

Insightful and important blog. I've found the same phenomenon among people.

I think many people say they have no regrets because they want to be able to answer "no" to the question - Would you change anything about your life if you could? People think saying "no" to this is synonymous with having no regrets. Your blog helps to disprove this. One can have many regrets in life but still be very happy with their life AND not want to change anything in the past because the past has set up our current level of growth and ultimately sets the tone for how we will approach the future. Will we approach future situations open-mindedly, ready to make mistakes or will we expect perfection and when we don't get it fool ourselves into thinking we have?

I have regrets. And now I'm even more proud of it!

Well said. Just two points I want to make.

Simplistic models: Regrets can be based on very simplistic models where we think "oh if only we would have made this one change" and it would have worked out. It is easy to forget how many factors were part of creating the situation(s), especially if we take any of life's big decisions: partner, work, children, friends, and so forth. At the same time this would probably not be the case with your simple and straightforward iPhone example from point 3.

Haunted: And then there are regrets that seem to almost literally haunt people when they think about them. Having regrets isn't the problem but not being able to make peace with them can be.

Thanks Hans. Great point and a great future study. Regrets are liable to be very superficial descriptions of an alternative life course which is why they are easy to perseverate on.

And as for a remedy, I suspect you are right about self-compassion as one of the best strategies. Another great study.

You have to get yourself to grad school pronto.

As stated by you:
"People that try to minimize regret often feel a sense of anxiety and paralysis where they are more focused on not making errors and mistakes and less focused on taking calculated risks toward difficult, aspirational goals."

I know you say 'often' and anyone can take their personal experience and call themselves an outlier when broad strokes are painted about a group of people, but I take some exception with the above statement. I am one of the people who claims to not have regrets. I do my best to make fully-informed and the best decisions I can given any circumstance. I try to do new things that are calculated risks with the information I have. This is why I don't have regrets. I can look back at something that didn't work out without regret. I know I did the best I could at the time. There is no need for regret. I can learn from the outcome without regretting anything. Maybe I am simply arguing connotation, but dwelling on the past seems like something we should do less of, not more. I do think we should embrace what came before, but we can learn from our mistakes without regretting them.

Thank you for your time.

We all have regrets whether we want to admit to them or not. Someone saying they don't have regrets, its pretty much saying they're perfect and never make mistakes. I do agree with John Wait in the sense that, how can you regret a decision you made if you wisely calculated the risks, the pros and cons. If you go into a decision open minded, wisely, with patience and intellect, you did all you can, why regret. But the problem is, everyone has made a decision that wasn't well calculated and made wisely, that's when you have a regret. Decisions made on impulse are most of the time regrets later on. The regret you hear the most about is of a former partner, a lost love. You leave your girlfriend/boyfriend for someone else you thought was a better match, 5 years later you realize you made a huge mistake. The grass may look greener on the other side, but what you don’t realize until you get there, is that the grass is artificial. By this time someone else is occupying you’re the grass you just left behind.

You said, "We often don't find out the benefits of the paths not taken until later." I think sometimes this works in our favor and we accept the path we did take as the new normal and move on. and isn't this a healthier way of approaching it in cases where we can't really know where the road not taken would have lead us?

BTW, I wrote a much longer comment and lost it when I accidentally closed the window without realizing that it was asking me for a captcha code. So I am feeling some definite regret right now! Great article and discussion, thanks Todd.

" . . . and looked down one as far as I could
to where it bent in the undergrowth . . ."

You say in your post that there's nothing our 3-5 year old's can't do. As an individual with lifetime social anxiety, I can remember regretful instances as early as four years old.

For example, my friend was leaving my house from a playdate and I said "Come back anytime! The garage door code is 1124!" My mom was standing beside me, gave me this look, and I immediately thought "Oh my gosh. I just told her the code. Mom said I wasn't supposed to tell anyone. Now I've just put our family's life at risk. Why did you do that, stupid?" etc. There are other examples. This is just one. For background, my mom was not physically abusive. If anything, she was a bit neurotic.

Why do some children experience regret earlier on than others? Is early regret associated with predisposition to any disorders? If so, is there any way to identify children who are more prone to regret and try to help them cope?

Great article Todd! Regret is one of those concepts I try to explore when working with inmates. I feel it opens the door to introspection and can be a very beneficial learning experience that reduces the probability of re-offending (fingers crossed). Working with such a concept is really a refreshing process rather than the all too familiar one size fits all interventions. Your research and blogs inspire my creativity. Keep it up!

I do not have regrets. Why, because my choices, whether right or wrong, are what make me who I am. I can say I am sorry about something I have done, but it is not the same as regretting it. I don't believe that saying, "Well, if I had only done this or that, my life would have been different." You don't know that for sure because that was not the choice you made at the time. Maybe, things would not have turned out like you think they would have.

I say embrace your past mistakes and good choices and make yourself a better person rather than sit around with regrets.