Would’ve, could’ve, should’ve : The purpose of regret
Everyone feels it, and wishes they didn’t. We're more likely to regret things we didn’t do or didn’t say. What is its purpose, this gnawing feeling? Take a look
On an April morning in 1888, Alfred Nobel opened a newspaper to find his obituary staring back at him.
The French press service had got it wrong; it was his brother, the Swedish engineer Ludvig Nobel, who had died. But what was undoubtedly worse than the error was what they had to say about Alfred.
The obituary referred to the chemist as a “merchant of death”, because of his invention of dynamite. His explosive had changed the world for the better, in some ways. Tonnes of it helped build the Panama Canal. But it also took warfare to a new level.
Nobel felt regret wash over him as he read the piece. In that moment, he decided to change how he was remembered.
By the time he died eight years later, aged 63, he had bequeathed a large portion of his fortune to setting up what remains the world’s most prestigious set of awards: the annual Nobel prizes in physics, chemistry, physiology / medicine, literature and peace.
(The Nobel Prize in Economics, incidentally, was not part of the original set; it follows Nobel Prize guidelines but is officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.)
There have been plenty of “what-have-I-done” moments lived out in public view, through history.
Last year, computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton, 76, often called the godfather of AI, resigned from Google, saying he regretted his lifelong contributions to the field. There seemed to be no way to keep this thing from being misused, he added.
Aza Raskin, 40, who created the infinite scroll when he was in his 20s, has since tried to make amends through a non-profit organisation that works to expose “the negative effects of persuasive technology and social media”.
“Regret is one of the most common human emotions,” author Daniel Pink writes, in The New York Times bestseller The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward (2022). “In fact, a survey of 4,489 people across the United States found that Americans are more likely to feel regret than they are to floss their teeth.”
Pink’s own research was born of personal regret. Five years ago, when he turned 55, “I looked back and there were things that I wished I had done, things I wished I hadn’t done, and things I wished I had done differently,” he says.
When he sheepishly brought up the subject of his regrets with others, he found that everyone had their own list, and wanted to talk about it. It turned out to be “something so universal, personal and emotional”.
Stuck on replay
Where does it come from, this gnawing feeling?
Children experience regret by the time they are six and begin to anticipate it by eight, according to a 2014 study by researchers at Queen’s University Belfast, published in the journal Cognition and Emotion.
It likely served an evolutionary purpose, making a negative outcome memorable and acting as a way to underline to the self: we do not want this to happen again. If necessity is the mother of invention, regret is at least a distant cousin.
Interestingly, when it comes to a faceoff between the promise of regret and the promise of pleasure, the latter almost always wins. And so it is that we “quit” smoking several times in a single year, finish the packet of chips, kiss the person we know we shouldn’t.
Analysing ‘alas’
What are the things we regret most?
In 2022, Pink set up the website worldregretsurvey.com, to collect regrets, anonymously, if contributors preferred. More than 26,000 people from 134 countries have contributed to it so far.
“Not telling my father I loved him while he was alive,” wrote a 60-year-old man from Colorado.
“I was often rude to people. Once brought a cousin to tears, saying that she was lucky to lose her father, because now the state pays her maintenance... And now I’m ashamed to remind them of this and ask for forgiveness,” said a 21-year-old from Russia.
“I regret not finishing university, but I am proud of myself for getting it done 25 years later,” a 46-year-old South African woman wrote.
There were regrets about not stepping up to help a woman being harassed in Saudi Arabia, quitting the saxophone at 13 because it wasn’t cool enough in Alaska, not moving out of Switzerland for a job offer that would have kept them away from their children.
Common regrets among Indians on the site included not having the courage to move abroad and live independently; and leaving a partner at the behest of a parent.
The four types of regrets that turned out to be the most common were not building a stable foundation for one’s life, not taking more chances, not doing the right thing, and not building strong relationships.
“One thing that really stood out is how much people regret the things they didn’t do. Regrets over inaction overwhelmingly outnumbered regrets over action,” Pink says.
One possible reason, he adds, is that actions can often be undone; a missed opportunity often cannot.
Rue’s clues
Whatever the regret, Pink says, it is generally a good idea to examine it. That is a big part of why it’s there.
“We think that the path to a good life is to never be negative, to always look forward and never look back. That’s actually a terrible idea,” says Pink. It contradicts science and lived experience, and underestimates the human capacity for change and improvement.
The “At Least” emotions, those that lend a positive bent, are vital; they remind us of how much we still have. But the “If Only” emotions can be crucial turning points, he says.
If ignoring regrets is a bad idea, wallowing in them is worse. “What we should be doing is confronting our regrets, thinking about our regrets, using them as signal and information,” Pink says.
Write down the regrets; talk about them; make them less abstract and less intimidating. Then use them as grist. Because you’re still here. And ultimately, that’s what really matters.