A Zen-ish Thoughts About Regret and Humility

I group regrets into two categories

• External – I regret that person did that, or I regret that happened (without personal attribution)
• Internal – I regret that I did, or did not do <x>

For external events, it's fair to wish that one or more people treated you or someone you care about better, to wish that one or more people were having a more positive impact on the world, to wish that various impersonal things like diseases, disasters, and accidents didn't happen.

If you spend too much time there, it displaces gratitude for the better things that have also happened, the work you have to do to effectively cope with or in some cases change these external things, to spend more time in enjoyment, accomplishment, love, helping others, and so on.

For internal things, there is an additional dimension. Since in these cases I am the agent who did the undesirable thing or did not do the more desirable thing, regret contains an implicit element of rejection (not accepting what is so), of illusion (magical thinking that I have more perfect knowledge, self-control, and external control than I do, or than humans in general do), and of disappointment in myself and blame.

If you don't spend any time here, you miss out on learning, and on motivation to do better. If you spend too much time here, in addition to the displacements mentioned for external regrets, you stay in a pattern of chronic blame.

Perhaps you have noticed that beyond a moment of venting, blaming others does not fix problems, improve those other people, or reduce the chances of such problems recurring. It's the same when the person being blamed is you. So, at best, blame is useless. Of course, at worst, and typically, it is much more destructive than merely being useless. It aligns with our morbid fascination with vengeance, and does damage to the person blamed, which is an egregiously high price to pay when no net positive change is at all likely to ensue.

This morning, as I was reviewing a number of my frequently, chronically revisited personal, internal regrets, I suddenly found the dots connected between the illusion that I function with more perfect knowledge and self-control than I do, or than humans in general do, and this pattern of too-frequently revisiting internal regrets.

When regret is chronic rather than productive, and seeing that it perpetuates blame in particular, it reasserts the grandiose idea that I function with more perfect knowledge and self-control than I do, or than humans generally do. That is, it is ridiculously lacking in humility.

Regret, shame, and guilt have been given a bad name. They are healthy responses to one's misdeeds, and motivate us to do better. But when they are imposed on us from external sources, or when we stay stuck in them chronically, they are just another problem, not an integral part of doing better. There is a lot of art in not letting oneself off the hook too readily, and also not keeping oneself on the hook in perpetuity.

Regret your less than ideal actions and inactions. Learn and improve. But have the humility to see yourself in realistic, non-grandiose terms. Between "Every bad thing I do doesn't count because I am only human," and "I have failed in a way that I must be punished in perpetuity," there is a middle path along which, humility leads, learning and growth follow, and accusation is displaced by awareness and improvement.

Let regret do its work, and let it finish its work and move on. Don't marry it.