What Regret Wants Us to Know (And Do Now)
How facing regret now can help us settle an old score — with ourselves.
Lu Hanessian
Depending on the day, I may or may not have a boatload of regret.
And then depending on the day, I might have no regrets at all. I used to think regret was a useless concept. What was the point? I thought. If I couldn’t go back and change anything, what good would it serve me now to wish I’d done something differently? I’ve learned better.
Regret, n., a “pain or distress in the mind at something done or left undone,” (1500's); “weeping” (Old English), “groaning” (Old Norse).
Looking back, I harbored some deep, achey regrets for too many of my younger years — let’s see…berating myself for not calling the Broadway producer back who said he wanted to listen to my original musical (“send me your cassette, if I love it, I’ll produce it; if I don’t, I’ll tell you!”); not investing more money in my early twenties; not speaking up with conviction to a powerful TV boss who I feared (and who, twenty years later meteorically crashed down in a shocking, very public disgrace); not doing my PhD before I got into television 25 years ago…
And, my biggest regret of all…not seeing my beloved grandmother one more time before she passed.
Regret is often…