The Power of Regret

I admit it. I've done some really stupid things in my life. I've hurt the ones I love, I've let people down, and at times I've just been a general disappointment and even occasionally crossed the line into abject failure. Overall I don't think of myself of a bad person, but a good person who makes mistakes from time to time. I'd like to think I'm getting better with age and that my dumbest choices are behind me, but occasionally I still surprise myself. All of this adds up to one of the emotions I hate most: regret.

If I had a super power it would probably be the ability to feel regret. It seems to follow me wherever I go, and even if the ratio of good to bad in my life is a thousand to one, I will regret that one thing until the end of time. When I was a kid my parents read me the story of the Princess and the Pea, about a girl whose lineage as a "true princess" was proven because she was so sensitive that she could feel a pea underneath a very large stack of mattresses and woke up with bruises all over her body. I certainly hope that princess never had to go camping, but in some ways I am a lot like her. I seem to be able to feel the pangs of regret even through multiple layers of time and restitution and forgiveness.

So what is the point of regret? Sometimes it seems to serve no purpose other than to torment. And while I acknowledge that much of the problem lies with me and my almost masochistic tendency to hold on to things that I shouldn't, there is a powerful purpose for regret in our lives. Sometimes, but not always, we get second chances. When these chances come, regret can help us do better than we did before. Even if we don't exactly get second chances--such as when a relationship simply can't be saved--we can bring the lessons of regret with us into our new relationships. We can be quicker to apologize and forgive and forget, we can focus on what we have in common instead of dwelling on differences, we can surrender the need to be right all the time and we can give others the benefit of the doubt. We can seek to truly understand them, we can focus more on their strengths and less on their faults, and we can love them unconditionally.

That is the power of regret.