Daniel H. Pink - The Power of Regret - How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward

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Regret is not dangerous or abnormal, a deviation from the steady path to happiness. It is healthy and universal, an integral part of being human. Regret is also valuable. It clarifies. It instructs. Done right, it neednt drag us down; it can lift us up.

In other words, the inability to feel regretin some sense, the apotheosis of what the no regrets philosophy encourageswasnt an advantage. It was a sign of brain damage.

Two decades of research on counterfactual thinking exposes an oddity: thoughts about the past that make us feel better are relatively rare, while thoughts that make us feel worse are exceedingly common. Are we all self-sabotaging masochists?

Dont dodge emotions. Dont wallow in them either. Confront them. Use them as a catalyst for future behavior. If thinking is for doing, feeling can help us think.

Human life spreads across multiple domainswere parents, sons, daughters, spouses, partners, employees, bosses, students, spenders, investors, citizens, friends, and more. Why wouldnt regret straddle domains, too?

Whats visible and easy to describethe realms of life such as family, education, and workis far less significant than a hidden architecture of human motivation and aspiration that lies beneath it.

Foundation regrets begin with an irresistible lure and end with an inexorable logic.

At the heart of all boldness regrets is the thwarted possibility of growth. The failure to become the personhappier, braver, more evolvedone could have been. The failure to accomplish a few important goals within the limited span of a single life.

Deceit. Infidelity. Theft. Betrayal. Sacrilege. Sometimes the moral regrets people submitted to the surveys read like the production notes for a Ten Commandments training video.

What gives our lives significance and satisfaction are meaningful relationships. But when those relationships come apart, whether by intent or inattention, what stands in the way of bringing them back together are feelings of awkwardness. We fear that well botch our efforts to reconnect, that well make our intended recipients even more uncomfortable. Yet these concerns are almost always misplaced.

The four core regrets operate as a photographic negative of the good life. If we know what people regret the most, we can reverse that image to reveal what they value the most.

But with regrets of action, I still have the chance to recalibrate the presentto press Ctrl+Z on my existential keyboard.

Following a straightforward three-step process, we can disclose the regret, reframe the way we view it and ourselves, and extract a lesson from the experience to remake our subsequent decisions.

As a universal drug, anticipated regret has a few dangerous side effects.

Though we would like to live without regrets, and sometimes proudly insist that we have none, this is not really possible, if only because we are mortal.

James Baldwin, 1967