"Regret, my colleague Julie Beck wrote in 2016, is "the emotional price we pay for free will." If we were just pawns tossed around on the chessboard of life, she explains, there'd be nothing to regret. Most of us would probably take that trade-off: Better to make mistakes than to have no control at all. But even so, none of us enjoys the experience of regret."
"Looking backward can be an act of desperate refusal to accept the passage of time: What if? If only. I should've. I could've. But maybe there's a way to make regret less about the past-by giving in to those feelings of sadness or disappointment or guilt, just for a little while, we might learn something new about ourselves right now, in the present."
Regret functions as the emotional price of free will, arising when people perceive missed opportunities, mistakes, or lost control. Preferring agency over determinism creates the potential for sorrow and self-reproach. Looking backward can become a refusal to accept time's passage, generating persistent what‑ifs. Briefly sitting with sadness, disappointment, or guilt can yield insight and present self-knowledge. Adopting a rigid 'no regrets' stance risks repeating mistakes by blocking reflection. Moving forward requires making sense of past choices in the present, rather than erasing them, to transform regret into lessons without becoming paralyzed by them.
Read at The Atlantic
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