Is it better to regret something you have done, than something you haven't done, providing that something is the same in both cases? In most cases I think that it probably is, see the adage that we should try anything once / twice, or that we should live life to the fullest but clearly we don't advocate crime here, but if the regret is for not having committed the crime, surely that is better than regretting having done it? Or is it all dependent on context as I suspect?
I think that it really depends on what that something is. I mean I think it is better to regret not committing a crime, than to regret committing a crime. See I regret not leaving my ex sooner than I did, but I don't regret getting into the relationship with him and having children to him, as I have two amazing children out of that relationship. Regret is a very tricky thing. It really does depend on the circumstances and the situation at hand and how you perceive the outcome I guess.
I don't regret anything because everything I've done has been exactly what I wanted to do at the time.
That is a rather complicated issue. See, I only regret one thing that I've ever done--well one thing that I can think of right now. I married in '95 and my mom didn't approve of me getting married so young. If 21 is too young--but that was her reasoning. Well, she kept copping an attitude with my wife. I love my moms, but a momma's boy I am not. We ended up in a terrible fight and were estranged for months. I won't go into details here, but suffice to say I was justified. I take my marriage vows very serious. My wife patched things up between us. Get that, she didn't approve of me confronting her--yeah, she used to be a bit of a pacifist. She thought I should have let it ride and wait until moms eventually came around... sorry, I don't roll that way. To make a short story long, I regret the fight in the sense that it created a rift between us at the time, but it brought my wife and mother together--much quicker than if I had sat on my hands. Believe me, I know how she is. So, should I have sat on my hands? I don't think so, even though I can tell mom still resents me a little. I'm sorry about it--then again, wouldn't I have done my wife a disservice by allowing my mom to continue disrespect her? I think I would have regretted that more.
I don't know. I seem to end up regretting every single chance I take, and over time, this has made me so bitter that I don't believe in the good things I once believed in. I think I'd rather wonder over what might have been, instead of having become so jaded and not believing in things anymore. I might be regretful but at least I'd still have hope.
As already mentioned, regret is a complicated emotion, and I think it actually comes in stages. You may regret the actual action initially. You may later come to regret the cost of the action. You may even later come to regret that the cost was so high for what you learned. Hopefully you did learn something. A very complicated paradigm is the human condition.
I regretted telling my mum the truth, because she turns it on me. I regret telling her the truth about a couple of things actually. Lying to her really is easier.
Another thing I learned the hard way. If your child's pet dies--tell them so and deal with it. Last year, his cat was ran over and I buried it and told Tommy that it ran off... bad idea. He is still expecting it to show up. So when his dog died at the first of the year, I buried it and made a rock cairn over the grave then told him what had happened. For several days, he would sit out there after school and cry. He put a plastic dog on a flat rock I put in the center and he goes out there and talks to it. He's dealing with it. And he has no unrealistic expectations. He does this less and less now. He even mentioned that his cat is probably dead too. I know this sounds gruesome, but I think it is healthier than waiting and wondering when his friend is going to show up.
I agree with what Torana said about it really depending upon the situation. Like what she said, it's better to regret not commiting a crime than to be regretting committing the crime in jail.
I regret a lot of decisions I made when I was younger. But in a way I don't regret it. I'm odd like that I don't regret what I do, but I do regret it. I just can't seem to realize that I should regret it. But I don't know what I was suppose to do in those situations that I was in. All my life I was lonely and miserable...and I needed some way for people to pay attention to me no matter how negative that was. And I did a whole bunch of wild and crazy things. And now because of those people don't like me, but they didn't like me in the first place. So maybe it I shouldn't have done it, but I don't know. I don't regret it because at least I got attention that I wanted, at least for a moment I was lonely. Instead I was feeling a different emotion other then loneliness. So I don't what to regret of my life and what not. And I know I am going to make even more terrible decisions later on.
I've no regrets for anything I've ever done, good or bad. I've never intentionally hurt anyone I care for nor would I. If that person means nothing to me and I know what I have said is right then that's fine. However, I will always apologise for wrong doing but what use is it to regret? Regret is a negative emotion and serves no purpose but to stagnate you. Whether it's good or bad you should learn from it and move on.
I am torn on the issue of regret. Every decision I have made has brought me to where I am now. Had I made other decisions in the past, I might have avoided a lot of pain. But, what I learned from those experiences directly lead to my moving to this town and meeting my husband and really finding a place where I feel I belong. Sometimes though, I still wonder how things could have been different. Wonder if I could have been even happier. But, I wouldn't trade my life for that unknown. I wouldn't go back and change anything, even if I could.
I tend to regret a lot of things because I'm an extremely impulsive person. However, my decisions, whether I regret them or not, brought me to where I am at this point in time, and I do not regret where I am right now. It's very complex when you try to boil it down to it's root, probably because every decision depends on the decision prior. For example, I deeply regret returning to a particularly destructive habit of mine, but if I hadnt, I would never have met the single most instrumental person in my life thus far, and I dont regret meeting said person. I wonder if any of this makes sense. Hmm. Thank you; I'll be thinking about this all day now!
