Is regret meaningful?
 

I just got done watching the movie Magnolia with a bunch of friends. One of the main themes in the movie we talked about is that we should use regret to improve ourself. Regret is something we should keep a hold of so it doesn't turn into a faded memory, leading to making the same mistake again.

So my question is what kind of person are you? Do you believe regret is worth holding on to, or do you think one should live a life of "no regrets"?

I think regret is something you should pay attention to, but not hold on to.

If you did something wrong, or in bad light, you will usually regret. It was the path taken poorly.

You can use regret as a lesson for future situations, but once you learn the lesson, its best you discard the regret.

Regret is good to no one when it isn't used for what it actually is: a lesson.

Regret is something inherent within human nature which seems to have a specific and essential purpose.
It is a strong impression of negative emotions onto past memories where the person in question had negative or undesirable experiences.
However, it should not, at the same time, be so prevalent in your life that it is debilitating.
Like sass said, it is good to keep it until you have learned your lesson, but afterwards, it is rather pointless to keep, and should be released, so that it does not build up too much in your mind.

Do think the lesson will have the same potency if you discard the regret though? It seems like the more time would pass, the more you may think back and say "oh it wasn't that bad" and possibly make the same mistake...

I see too many negative associations with regret to make it something more useful than it is harmful. But I guess it would have to depend on how a person's wired. It could keep you in fear in attempting something failed in the past just as easily as correcting the way next go around. Or if a lesson learned was entirely unique for that past situation, that can only shelter you emotionally to dwell. I don't think we ever forget the things we regret even if we put a block on it. When something similar rears it's head, dredging up the past becomes involuntary. Use it if you have to but don't go out of your way to hold onto it.

You can learn from having regrets, but I don't necessarily think a person should always hold onto them. A person regrets something because they later realize that what happened perhaps was not what they wanted or intended. Regret would allow a person to remember that mistake and learn from it.

When I was having this discussion with my friends (about 5 them), it was interesting that I was the only one with a significant regret. No one else claimed to have one.

I guess a better question is what kind of things should you regret. I know that for a lot of mistakes I make, I may not necessarily regret it since the mistake did teach me something.

I guess I would have to define regret as something you wish you could go back and change, regardless if it was helpful in learning a lesson or not. So is this kind of regret OK? The kind in which you wish you could change the past? Is it OK to have a desire to change your past, or should you just accept everything as it happened?

I think a smart person will discard the regret.

Why carry around heavy rocks with you to constantly remind yourself that they're heavy?

Sure, a stupid person would FORGET. But the point of a lesson is to REMEMBER it.

I think what Sass is saying is to learn from the expereince but not continually beat yourself up about making a bad decision.

I agree.

I personally think life should be lived without regrets. There's no use beating yourself up over a past that has already been done. You can look back on it, but don't regret anything you do.

I'm the type that beleives regret is good & bad. It's bad if the regret isn't really your own, but that you've been convinced whatever you did was regretful. That kind of regret is counter productive & does nothing as you really never learn anything. Being convinced could be anything from people telling you, to you seeing things with tainted vision. Distorted memories, l;eading to depression, doing something harmful again for whatever reason, etc etc.

Though the second type is more helpful. It's the kind you arrive on by yourself. The kind that lets you really reflect & grow. The type that allows you to keep the regret without all the bad crap attached. The kind that lets you mature & to an extent help another that may be doing whatever it was that you regreted.

Having no regrets, however, is pretty selfish & irresponsible in my opinion. That's kinda like thinking everything you did, no matter who you hurt, what you messed up or what you destroyed was good, because, well, you learned if nothing else.

Most of you are speaking as if regret can be easily turned off. It ain't that simple.

Not intending to sound like some after school special or something, but if you do not believe that you can set the regret aside, then you will have problems setting it aside. However, if you fully believe that you can just cast it aside, then you will be capable of it. It is very much akin to the placebo effect. If you "impress" (that is the best term that I can think of to describe this method) upon your thoughts that you must, or must not, feel a certain way, given a certain situation, eventually your brain will rewire itself to conform to this manner of thinking.

I think you should experience regret for something that happened, but when you get wrapped up in it and can't let go of it, the whole point of it is defeated. The feeling of regret lets you know you've done something wrong, so it's necessary, but you shouldn't let yourself feel that way forever.

The reason the placebo effect works is because the person thinks that an outside influence will change them. The person doesn't "impress" upon their mind that this outside influence will change them, they're told that it will. Thus, the expectation that it will work is what makes it work. This is completely different then simply "convincing" yourself that guilt can be removed, because there's nothing to give you the expectation that it can be removed since it all takes place in your mind without an outside influence.

Life with regrets is only natural because we strive to be better, more perfect. When we stray from our ideal or from our wrong choices, we beat ourselves up for it. Someone very close to me uses regret to a ridiculous degree, sometimes to suicidal thoughts. I try to tell her that it's not worth clinging onto the past like that. But for some, thoughts like those can never go away.

I try not to live my life with regrets, but it's really hard to do. You must be one hell of an apathetic person towards life to be like that.

I think everyone has regret, regrets about things they should/shouldn't have said or done. I don't really have one BIG regret - just tons of little ones that make me feel rotten.
Most of it has to do with me being mediocre at just about everything because I'm too damn lazy to take initiative or try and the fact that my love life is such a failure because I tell every guy to f-off as soon as he shows the slightest bit of interest in me - but whatever, I'm still young.

I think we shouldnt live with regret, because it will become burdern for us in future. I know some ppl who cant walk toward future because all they do is weeping about their past. No, we shouldnt be like that. Nothing will change if we keep remember a regret, but of course we could also learn from that regret to not repeat the same mistake.

Living with regrests stops time in a emotional sense, you can't move on for as long as you hold onto it. Sass speaks of it as being a lesson - this is true. The ill feeling is the punishment before the lesson is given - with that said my mind is full of dead horses. With every dead horse that is 'revived' through memory I make a strive to better myself.

People who claim to have no regrets might as well just say "I don't have a conscience" and be done with it. Humans are flawed. We make mistakes. We say and do things that hurt other people.

A person who doesn't feel that he or she has ever done anything wrong (aka doesn't regret anything they've ever said or done) has no conscience. It's as simple as that. And that's really sad.

Recognizing mistakes and being regretful aren't necessarily the same thing. Although I get what sort of person you're referencing, it's entirely possible to have an apologetic attitude about your errors while at the same time not letting them trouble you after significant time's past.

A guess I half-lied on that. It's been said earlier, but once the lesson is learned you should let it go. The conscience keeps me looking for the moral of the story until I find it, and when I do I take it to heart. After that there's no reason for me to smack my forhead anymore. It's futile, and it isn't sincere or helpful at that point. The apologetic attitude can linger long after you've bid adieu to regret, and often times it does.

But no, life full of regret is no life at all. Though this opens up into the steryotypical hero who just can't forgive himself for that one mistake he made. I've never done anything along those 'unforgivable' lines, and I don't plan to (who does?). In a situation like that though, would it be alright to let go of regret after the lesson's been learned? Curious.

I don't see what's so wrong about being sorry, though. Built in mechanism to avoid from doing the same stupid shit. To me, it's the same as gaining the lesson. It's not the same as regret, it's the memory of it. Cast that aside, you're going to repeat yourself.

Mind you, I define this as something completely tame, nowhere close to beating yourself up over something.

Indeed, and that's what I meant it as. It's related to regret, but no more than a cousin. Nothing wrong with being sorry, didn't mean to give you the wrong impression.

That's what I meant. I was just lumping the apologetic feeling in with regret. I totally let go of the really really getting down on yourself pretty quick actually, but I still feel bad & sorry, but not in a depressive overwhelming way. More of saying whatever I've regreted, I'm still not proud of, nor will I ever be.