And why we shouldn’t.
No matter whether you are five or eighty, no matter how successful you are or what a fool you have been, people regret. Regret is like that one friend who is late to the party but can’t stay quiet. In the end, it hands you a checklist, and whispers, “So, what did you miss?”
Oh, how much we’ve missed, and how much we love hearing these regrets spoken out loud! They stir something deep inside us. We feel inspired, ready to take on whatever punches life has in store. That’s probably why themes like “I’m Thirty Today: Lessons I’ve Learned” or “Regrets from a Deathbed” never fail to rake in high clicks.
But are we really ready? Or are we just curious? Maybe we’re hoping to learn something — or maybe it’s just a little out of schadenfreude. Either way, these stories hook us every time. Check out the most popular ones.
Not spending enough time with my family and friends.
Not following my passion.
Not surrounding myself with positive people.
Not saying “I love you” enough.
Not quitting the job earlier, or working too much.
The list goes on and on.
So why do we regret? We don’t regret when we are happy. We don’t sit down in joy and go, “Wow, I’m so happy, Why?!” But the minute something goes wrong, we grab the nearest person and start philosophizing. It’s as if life is saying, “Here’s your lesson, but only after you’ve tripped and fallen on your face.”
Can we really improve life through regretting? It seems regretting is a course without which life is felt incomplete. Even if we were handed a “restart” button, we’d probably still find new things to regret. Imagine reliving your life, thinking, “This time, I’ll get it right!” only to reach the end and realize your bucket list is even fuller.
Sharing our regrets to help the younger generation? Well, if it ever worked, why do we keep hearing the same regrets for thousands of years? Maybe life is more of a Whack-a-Mole game. You knock down a few mistakes, but new ones will pop up just as quickly. It’s the nature of life, unpredictable, messy, and inherently imperfect. Regret is just a knot on the rope. It’s not meant to change anything.
We often obsess over what we could’ve done differently. But life isn’t a Netflix series where we can skip to the next episode or rewind past a cringy moment. Life is lived forward, not backward. Even at the end of the road, we should be looking ahead, toward the unknown. Our memory tells us, “Turn back! There is the comfort of the known.” But no two paths in life are the same. Once you get there, you’ll find yourself still facing the unknown. Where’s the bulletin that I failed to dodge forty years ago? This time, it might be a hammer.
The humorist Erma Bombeck reflected on her life and said, “If I had my life to live over again, I would have laughed more, complained less, and eaten more ice cream.” She did not say she’d correct her mistakes. She’d simply do more of what made life joyful and sweet.
And that’s the key: we shouldn’t let regret define us. It keeps us stuck in the story when it should be moving forward. Instead of dwelling on the what-ifs, focus on what’s next. At the end of your life, if you’ve loved, laughed, cried, and maybe made a fool of yourself a few times, you’ve truly lived. IT’S YOUR LIFE.
Regret wouldn’t help you dodge the bulletin forty years ago, let alone get you a new life. When your time comes, treat regret as a teacher, let gratitude be the valedictorian. Be thankful for the lessons, but don’t let them write your story. YOU WRITE IT. Don’t say, “I regret…” Say, “What an adventure!”
