Licking the Razor's Edge (2015)

Addiction #33 – Freedom from REGRET
“He tried to name which of the deadly seven might apply, and when he failed, he decided
to append an eighth … regret.” ~ Charles Frazier
“When someone you love says goodbye, you can stare so long and hard at the door they
closed that you forget to notice all the other doors that the Divine has already opened for
you nearby.” ~ inspired by Shannon Alder
Regret is a remorseful sadness; a self-critical state of mind we experience when we blame
ourselves for the less-than-ideal outcomes of our past. It is a sense of loss or sorrow at
what might have been; a wishing that we could either undo a previous action that went
wrong, or re-engage a choice unmade that might have helped things to “turn out better”.
Like most living beings, we are programmed to analyze situations and make decisions
that optimize our own pleasure or that give us the best chance to survive. Whenever we
happen to make a mistake in this regard, the area of our brains responsible for processing
rewards (the ventral striatum) gets “turned off”, while the area of our brains responsible
for generating anxiety for potential dangers (the amygdala) gets “amped up”. And while
this dynamic does enable us to “learn from our mistakes” and thereby “make better
choices” in the future, it also demands a focus that is extremely self-centered. And
because it is our self-centered choices that ultimately bring us the most suffering, regret is
always counterproductive – ultimately taking us far away from the Peace of acceptance,
and far deeper into the pain of fear and longing.
I imagine that every one of us can think of at least a few “big mistakes” made in our past;
choices we would make differently if given another chance to do so – decisions we
regretted, and possibly actions that we still regret to this day. And yet being addicted to
regret is not only about our tendency to cling to degrading ourselves for our “major
screw-ups”. Like most of our addictive tendencies, regret’s influence is as subtle as it is
potent — infiltrating our lives in many ways of which we are often unaware …
RECOGNIZING our own ADDICTION to REGRET
To free ourselves of our self-destructive habits, we must first be conscious of them. And
to be conscious of our addictions when they do surface, we must first be able to identify
how those behaviors manifest themselves in our everyday lives. To aid you in taking this
important first step with regards to regret, consider the following questions:
*Do you wish you could live a more meaningful life – one where you spent more time
with “things that matter” (e.g. friends, family, selfless service), and less time with things
that don’t (e.g. work)?
*Do you get down on yourself after making a mistake?
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