The cult of “no regrets” is strong. Everywhere you look today, the tide of protectionist sentiment is flowing. “No regrets” are pasted on shirts and marked to no end. As attractive as this type of thinking may seem, it is also downright ridiculous.
“To have no regrets, do you think that absolutely everything you have done and everything that has happened to you is perfect just as it is, or you just do not have the perspective to see that it is not,” says Anna Gotlib, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Brooklyn College CUNY. Gotlib is the editor of The moral psychology of regret in which neuroscientists, philosophers, jurists, and other thinkers question the essential backward-looking emotion to provide insight and perspective.
Make no mistake: Repentance is indeed essential. Although, yes, we can all be trapped by them, they teach us a lot about ourselves and our values. And for parents, regret is especially powerful. Having children makes you think back on your life, what you wish you had done, what you wish you did not have, and how to make your children better than you are.
Paternal talked to Gotlib about regret, the problems with the “no regret” cult, and why we should all accept more negative emotions.
You see a lot of articles and people these days preaching the “No Regrets” lifestyle. There are knuckle tattoos and self-help books and just a general part of society that seems to want to eliminate the idea of regret in general. For one, it seems hard to believe. But, even if it was, the “no regrets” lifestyle seems wildly unhealthy.
In the introduction to my book, I wrote a bit about this “No Regrets” cult that has kind of infected a lot of the West and especially the US. When people say they have no regrets, A) I do not believe them and I think they are lying to themselves and B) I think it is really unhealthy. Because to have no regrets, you think that absolutely everything you have done and everything that has happened to you is perfect just as it is or you just do not have the perspective to see that it is not.
Striving to have no regrets is really unhealthy because if we regret it, we can reconsider our lives. Whether we have chosen our actions or not, we can reflect on, remain silent or chew on who we are and how we relate to the world, where we have failed, and so on. Regret is necessary to be a complete human being.
So, what is regret, exactly?
That’s a difficult question. But it is definitely an emotion looking back that looks at one’s past and reconsiders past choices or events. Regret is not just about choices. You may regret something you did not even participate in as an agent. It’s about wishing things were different.
Statistics tend to show that people tend to regret more things they did not do. But I think there are a lot of people who regret choices they made to do something. Regret for lack of action is special and especially powerful because you do not really know what could have been, you just know you did not do something. There are all these endless possibilities that can create the imagination. If I had just done it, then, oh, the wonderful things that could have happened.
That kind of thinking can be pretty dangerous.
It can be. Because you can definitely imagine yourself in a dead end and in a position where everything you actually did is awful and everything you did not do is potentially amazing, which is a kind of magical thinking.
Is regret a way to blame ourselves? Are these ways of trying to deal with things we have done?
I think they can be a way of blaming ourselves. But I also think they might be a way of trying to take control of something that was beyond our control.
Many people misinterpret the term “regret” and use it as an aid for times when they did not really have a choice.
Yes. It’s one thing when I blame myself for being late for a very important meeting, when I keep regretting something that went wrong because of the weather or because there was traffic on the highway. It’s not a pity. I think there are times we think we regret what we do, but what we do is just wish things were [different] and trying to project ourselves into an agency we did not need to start with. I think regretting for some people can be a shortcut to imagining that they could have done something, or not done something, they never had the option to do in the first place.
For example, women who do not have children because they simply cannot have children are often asked if they regret not having children. Regret in this case is just the wrong category. This can be a very offensive one because you did not have a choice to start with. You may regret not being a mom, but having kids was not really something you could do.
So, regret should be hung on to something in which you had a personal choice.
If you start philosophically pulling it apart, you might be able to get to it, but I think regret is so many things to so many people. And for many people, it’s sorry about events. It’s not that regret, because they could have done nothing, disappears. This is what therapists do. They will like the idea of: Is this something you could have had a hand in at all?
There is a big difference between questioning regret and being obsessed with it. Is there any way to rationalize them and then just let them go?
Goh. If anyone knows, they are going to make a lot of money. I was not born in this country, so some of my ways of looking at things may not be clearly American, but I think people in the US tend to shy away from negative feelings. They tend to treat them as problems that need to be solved or something that needs to be done away with. One of the ways to deal with regret that it is not this discouraging to think about your horrible mistakes is to think about the fact that people are supposed to have negative feelings. You are supposed to have regret and sadness and disappointment.
This idea of eternal happiness for all as an ideal is truly destructive for many people. In Europe, where I come from, when you smile at strangers, people wonder what’s wrong with you. Not that you’re supposed to frown on them. But there is a kind of forced happiness, or excitement, here. And it does not mix very well with regret.
Not at all. New parents are faced with this kind of investigation to feel overjoyed all the time.
Yes. And for many people, it can be oppressive. Many of my friends are new parents or fairly new parents and they have expressed that after having their baby, everyone asks them, “Are you very happy ?!” and they are like “No, I’m exhausted. We want to sleep. ” There is this master story about how to be happy and have no regrets. I once had a friend tell me, “I’m not sure if my choice to be a mom was the best choice for me.” She did not use the regret, but she was definitely in the neighborhood.
It’s such an honest feeling. This is what she felt in the moment. And it can be healthy. When it comes to parenting, there is a performative aspect involved where you are supposed to feel a certain way all the time because that is what you have seen and that is what is expected. But we all have good days and bad days.
Yes, and I think young dads are in pretty difficult circumstances. The role of fatherhood is so volatile and changeable. I sometimes think they are not sure what they are supposed to feel and the realization is, There is no ‘supposed to’. ‘ That’s the hard part. Well, I’m a new dad, I’m supposed to be a mainstay of strength and joy and I’m not one of those things, you know?
How is regret essential to being human?
Well, I think it can be transformative, in the sense that regret can show you what your values may be that you may not even be aware of yet. When you ask yourself, What am I sorry about and why am I sorry about it? The answer – if you are open to the answer – may be surprising. Everyone has this narrative of who they are. But I think when you honestly question your own regret, you might find out that you are not really who you thought you were. Your values differ and your relationship with the world is different. I think it can be scary. But it’s very worth it.
*This interview has been edited and summarized.
