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Regret: Do you have any regrets in your life?

LightSun

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Absolutely, but you know what? Until they successfully master time travel, I'm stuck with the decisions that I've made, so I might as well learn to live with my regrets and try to focus on making the best possible situation out of what I've got to work with.

Dwelling too much on the past is the fasttrack to an early grave filled with misery.


I do not dwell or ruminate on what I can't change. I don't dwell, ruminate or go in a circular defeated pattern like a snake trying to devour its own head. A new fresh perspective is needed. To dwell on a negative one sinks in like sinking in the quicksand of one's own self induced suffering. We will in effect become our own enemy.
 

Lark

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That’s probably true-that it can be interesting-and I certainly do find other perspectives fascinating, but I have to admit that I have a bit if an aversion to them. Maybe it sounds petty ( Is it, petty, that I refused marijuana as a painkiller because my Father ruined his life with pot? Or a natural human response?) but I do not trust self-help authors.
Because I’ve seen what they have done to my husband.
“ Whaaaat ?! Those books are nothing but inspiring!”
Not if you are the type to over think and obsses over everything you do. He spends SO much time immersed in those books that they have the opposite effect, he wastes his life away reading rather than doing, so afraid he will fail to meet the standards in those books that he never TRIES anything. Then he buys MORE books to tell him it’s okay.

I can’t help but wonder if that is the true purpose if the “ self-help” industry, just another addicttion, no different than alcohol or drugs, designed to make one reliant on thier system so you will keep buying.

I do think what you're describing is actually a thing, Erich Fromm's only book which approaches something like the genre, which he didnt even publish but was published after his death spends a bit of time talking about how convinced he was that there was a burgeoning commercialisation of self-help or similar materials and that it was all about selling and had nothing really to do with allowing people to improve themselves.

Its in a book called Art of Being if you are interested, apparently he felt so strongly about it that he didnt publish. That and he thought that there was little point to people changing themselves when character was largely a by product of and dictated by social structures which needed to change instead.

I also know I dont read that much of the genre either, I do spend a lot of time reading but I like reading, all sorts of things. It can be addictive too but I figure its not as bad as other addictions.

It is a genre that lends itself to snake oil salesmen I guess.
 

Madboot

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I should have been more clear, but I meant short of amnesia or trauma to the brain. Whilst being in retention of ones full memories is how I should have prefaced that statement. Even in denial or repression, the regret is still there, just not acknowledged. As for exchanging my regrets for another persons, never. We are all the culmination of our life experiences, good and bad. I've tried to learn from the mistakes I've made. I do regret them as I have hurt someone I never intended to, but I like to think I've become a better person in the long run. I only wish I could tell them I'm sorry.
 

Mole

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I regret rejecting a friend as I could see it hurt him. I didn't know why I rejected him and I felt guilty. And today I can see he was making a sexual overture which I.rejected without knowing why.
 

Metis

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Not running away and saving myself from a treacherous situation which had lasting and severe impacts.
 

Sacrophagus

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Frankly, if one was to ask my old self, he would have answered that he had some regrets.

Since a long time ago, no more.

As hurtful as it was, I taught myself how to accept defeat and just carry on. To kick my ass forward and never look back. To be bitter and dwell on the past would have been my demise, to carry on was my determination, and the past serves me for lessons to share in all humility.

Fuck regrets. I have no time for that.
To make me regret something, I'd say dream on. To teach me something I don't know, I'd say you're welcome.

Maybe it's just my colossal ego talking, but that is how I survived to be where I am today. To carry on without fear of regrets is to be either a fool or a warrior, and I fully accept both of the titles.
 

Sacrophagus

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Yes. I’m human, and if you suffer from that affliction, you accumulate at least a few as you go. They’re sprinkled throughout my life and they’re all significant. They mostly deal with how I treated others. Whether I purposely or inadvertently caused harm they sometimes revisit me. Sometimes as a dull ache and sometimes with profound sharpness. They’re all lessons and though I’ve taken most of them to heart well before now, they resurface from time to time, dislodged from their normal resting place to rise again. They’re brought to forefront by association or general reflection.

Anyway, time to finish my coffee and attend to the day.

If to harm others is one of the things you regret, I too have been through a phase when I asked forgiveness from anyone who I would have hurt. Give them my face to hit it as hard as they can, even for the smallest of things. None of them took anything to heart and most of those things appeared to be just the making of my imagination. Nevertheless, to err is human and to admit one's mistake and ask forgiveness are essential steps towards the crystallization of those lessons.

I remember when I was a kid, I was playing with a cat, and it slashed my finger until blood was all over my bed. It was tantalizing, I lost it. I took the cat and hit her to the mattress, watching her jump, and I did it again and again. When she tried to get away, she walked in a drunken fashion and even at the sight of that I was frightened and I remembered crying over it for the whole night. Losing my cool and hurt an animal was never the ethics of a protector, and I judged myself hard for that. The cat was fine.

I got over it.

Regrets I mention are those that are beyond us. The choice to make is seemingly not yours, but still, you have to make a choice. Dilemmas are the mothers of all regrets.
 
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If to harm others is one of the things you regret, I too have been through a phase when I asked forgiveness from anyone who I would have hurt. Give them my face to hit it as hard as they can, even for the smallest of things. None of them took anything to heart and most of those things appeared to be just the making of my imagination. Nevertheless, to err is human and to admit one's mistake and ask forgiveness are essential steps towards the crystallization of those lessons.

I remember when I was a kid, I was playing with a cat, and it slashed my finger until blood was all over my bed. It was tantalizing, I lost it. I took the cat and hit her to the mattress, watching her jump, and I did it again and again. When she tried to get away, she walked in a drunken fashion and even at the sight of that I was frightened and I remembered crying over it for the whole night. Losing my cool and hurt an animal was never the ethics of a protector, and I judged myself hard for that. The cat was fine.

I got over it.

Regrets I mention are those that are beyond us. The choice to make is seemingly not yours, but still, you have to make a choice. Dilemmas are the mothers of all regrets.

I’m by far my harshest critic. Although I realize most of them have had their impact lessened by time, I carry the responsibility for their existence. I said hurtful things. I did hurtful things. Sometimes intentionally and sometimes through neglect. They don’t paralyze me thankfully. I’ve definitely learned from them. However, if their consequences didn’t still sting at times I would fear I’ve become callous with age.

As for whether my actions had lasting impact. I know a certain child suffered at my hands and the hands of my classmates and things endured in childhood have a profound effect on us. I could blame my actions on my age at the time. I could pass it off as suffering the ignorance and sometimes cruel impulses children have. It doesn’t lessen the damage done or heal the scars that kid carried into the future. Again, to me personally, that’s a stinging I should feel until my life is over. It’s just a fraction of the pain I inflicted.
 

Dreamer

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Frankly, if one was to ask my old self, he would have answered that he had some regrets.

Since a long time ago, no more.

As hurtful as it was, I taught myself how to accept defeat and just carry on. To kick my ass forward and never look back. To be bitter and dwell on the past would have been my demise, to carry on was my determination, and the past serves me for lessons to share in all humility.

Fuck regrets. I have no time for that.
To make me regret something, I'd say dream on. To teach me something I don't know, I'd say you're welcome.

Maybe it's just my colossal ego talking, but that is how I survived to be where I am today. To carry on without fear of regrets is to be either a fool or a warrior, and I fully accept both of the titles.

These are some powerful words, Sacro. I, too, can thankfully say I don’t have any regrets in life, and it’s not like I haven’t made any disastrous mistakes along the way to get to where I am today, as a person and who I’ve become, and where I’m going, but I agree, a large part of that is being able to let go of the pain, grief, anger, etc. The past helps build upon who you are, and all experiences in life should be cherished in that regard, that it’s ultimately part of your makeup, and the sort of beauty, failures and triumphs, can mean.

At least for me, holding regrets means to hold parts of yourself in discontent, of not accepting parts of yourself. My interpretation of “regret” will certainly it meet the definitions of others, but within this understanding, and working to absolve any and all inner conflict, myself being a constant work in progress where the process itself is reason for appreciation rather than the outcome, that I find myself comfortably answering this oh so common question, “do you have any regrets in life?”, that I say, “I don’t”. And I carry on.
 

Kanra Jest

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From a personal perspective, yes. Too many. But objectively they make us who we are and I'm not sure I'd change it for that reason.
 

Bush

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Things I've done that 'hurt' me, not really.

I regret some things I've done that have hurt other people.. at least, that have hurt them much more than they should have.

'Everything is just a learning experience' doesn't apply to those things. The world is bigger than me and I'd hope that I'm not completely selfish.
 

RadicalDoubt

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I regret many things in my life. While I'd like to say I'm quick to move on, I find that I sit in the center of dwelling on my mistakes and learning from them. I have a tendency to feel guilt pretty strongly, so it gets difficult not to dwell on my own misdoings. Still, I try to push myself to just learn from what I've done and push forward to something better.
 

LightSun

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I'd be surprised if any one of us do not have any regrets whatsoever in their life. It's not just about big things, but small things too. Regretting you slept too late last night, regretting you ate too much ice cream, regretting you added too much hot sauce into your food. This is a strange question.




I try not to dwell. Regrets and mistakes can teach you something, or show you what it is you did wrong. Beyond that, it's nothing but baggage.
It's an outlook I have consciously taken up ever since I was younger. It's generally more effective, and healthier than dwelling.

In life I do have some regret. I however in a given situation did the best I could at that specific time. It is only with more growth that new possible ways of dealing with a similar situation arrive on the horizon. I as Ixaerus you yourself stated don't dwell and ruminate on what is already past gone and over with. I don't dwell, ruminate or go in a circular defeated pattern like a snake trying to devour its own head. A new fresh perspective is needed.

To ruminate is as to sink into a quagmire of quicksand derived from our own thinking and thus become prey to self induced suffering produced by our own thoughts. We allow our thoughts in effect to become our enemy.
 
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