Last week I was talking with a high school-aged person I’ve known since, well, since she became a person 17 years ago or so. Somehow the topic of old-age came up, and she made the declaration that she was going to live to be 120 years old because she was going to live her life without regrets.
Whether or not living to be 120 would be a gift or a punishment is open to discussion. A few months before his recent death, my 95 year old Uncle George mentioned to me that 95 is not all it’s cracked up to be. I guess the machine wears out with so many miles on it.
But, what really struck me about this young gal’s comment was the depth of it. Regret is certainly a deep seated part of human life – especially in the Midwest where our ancestors set the behavioral bar pretty darn high.
I have had plenty of regrets in my life, so when she said she wasn’t planning to have any regrets, it really caught my attention, and caused some reflection.
To live a life without regret, a person would have to accomplish three basic things, all of which are very difficult. First, you’d need to avoid doing anything regrettable. An affair, an extra doughnut, a harsh word to a loved one… the opportunities for regrettable actions happen every minute we’re alive. Avoiding things we’ll regret 100% of the time is almost a human impossibility, but setting that as a goal is laudable.
The second step in a regret-free life is to fail at the first step, and then learn to forgive yourself for the regrettable acts you inevitably will perform. I know people who continue to beat themselves up over things they did 20 years ago, and there’s no good that comes from that. The converse of that is people who instantly forgive themselves for an on-going series of bad actions. Without some regret, we don’t grow as people. So, maybe temporary regret is the answer.
The third and most challenging manifestation of regret is for the things we don’t do. I regret not playing Monopoly when my daughters asked, or staying in the motel swimming pool with them longer when they were young and full of energy, or, or, or… the list of regrets of things not done is almost infinitely large.
Ironically, one regret people tend to have comes from not doing things that might have caused regret if we had done them. “That” girl or guy who showed some interest, but who you weren’t in a position to pursue, or that vacation you didn’t take or sports car you didn’t buy because you couldn’t afford it; the “would have, should have, could have” regrets in life grow in middle age, giving birth to the phenomenon known as the mid-life crisis.
Living regret-free is a goal much like fitting into that one pair of jeans. It may never happen, but striving to achieve it makes you think about your goal, and living life thoughtfully is important. Doing fewer things we’ll regret, forgiving ourselves for the occasional lapses, and not romanticizing the things in life we didn’t do are all useful aspirations. Maybe this enthusiastic and sincere young woman will have a regret or two in her life, but living to 119 isn’t anything to sneeze at.
Peter Wallace Writes 