

Why Regret Is Essential to the Good Life (2013) - dollaaron
http://aeon.co/magazine/psychology/regret-is-essential-to-the-good-life/

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brc
Well I made it about 50% of the he way through and was filled with regret for
starting the article. I found it whiny and introspective, all the things the
author feared.

Regret to me means you didn't take away the lesson when something didn't go
the way you wanted. If you learn the lesson, and then apply it, what is to
regret? There is no sense in living in the past.

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polarix
Retrospective analysis is important; is regret? Is it crucial to have the
emotional distress that comes with rational evaluation of past choices? Does
negative emotional reinforcement really work at such long time remove?

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hawkice
> Does negative emotional reinforcement really work at such long time remove?

So, I don't know about regret specifically, but when researchers asked people
to remember instances where they felt specific emotions, and asked how
strongly the emotions reoccurred during that process, the number one emotion
was embarrassment. Some theorize that fear of embarrassment driven by memories
of making mistakes is one of the leading factors in the fluency gap between
the first and second languages of children to foreign parents (who speak
English [or the language of their peers] much better than their parents native
language, even when their parents don't speak English at all -- somewhat odd
considering children _need_ to communicate with their parents to survive and
get basic needs met).

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polskibus
Regret can be a very strong motivator. Cold retrospective analysis does not
guarantee that the lesson will be imprinted in the consciousness. If you do
regret something though, chances that you repeat the same mistake again are
much smaller than if you just analysed the old situation.

You can look at the opposite of regret - say you really like doing something
(for example - programming) - you will be doing it much better (via
motivation) than if you just decided to do it because it is worth doing it
(ie. via cold analysis of the potential outcome like good pay in the future).

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nickbauman
If you never regret anything, you've never taken responsibility for anything.
Saying "No regrets" is not something to be proud of.

