Is it really possible to live your life and not have any regrets. I’ve heard various people say they regret nothing, but I know for me, I have many regrets.
There's some friends I wish I hadn't lost contact with, but otherwise I'm okay
I too must live with many regrets. my children love to throw them in my face
I think it comes down to whether you have a conscience or not. If your conscience is alive and well you will regret something's, after all you'll be an empathetic and sympathetic person. In my opinion it'll be those Machiavellian kind of people who'll have no conscience.
My biggist regret is that I have some. I should have been born perfect and stayed that way. Not. Now I'm old, fat, and ugly. I really regret the ugly part. Nothing I could have done about it barring extensive face reconstruction. I never liked looking like Sean Connery. I wanted to look like Ernest Borgnine. Or Charles Bronson. Craggy and tough, not smooth and pleasant.
I have very many regrets for the bad and 'evil' (yes) choices I've made- and now that I know the correct options, I am too old to make changes. I
If Nature provides a second life as a human, and one could remember the faults of the first life, would there be the courage to enact what was good and just? Many 'good people' die some very horrible deaths. That's why Trump will live forever- or it will, at least, seem like that.
For me, regrets are a complete waste of my time. They take away from the 'now'.
Are there things I look back on and wish I'd done differently? Of course, I'd be a
damnable liar if I said there weren't. However, there is absolutely no point in dwelling
on them. They are in the past and cannot be changed. Learn from them what I need,
and keep moving forward.
To paraphrase another poster, everything I've ever done and been through has gotten
me where I am now. I'm pretty happy with that. Changing anything isn't possible, for one thing, and for another, even if I could, I don't think I would. Not if it would change the present.
I refuse to dwell on things that are over and done. Regrets only get in my way.
When regret is a frame of mind, to me it's a tool of an examined life. I believe some people look back on their mistakes and think "it is what it is" and move on. I'm not one of those people and I think it affords me an opportunity to change my response. Regret can also be thought of as an aversive emotion, I can't imagine not feeling it, it's part of my emotional toolbox. Like other types of pain, it informs you that something in your environment isn't right.
I have experiences that I'm not to proud of, but I have no regrets. The reason:
Everything from my past took me to where i am, and who I am today. I learned allot on my journey so far. Even though I downright hate the crap I had to go through to get here, I'm still glad I'm here.
I find it hard to believe someone can say honestly that they have no regrets in life. Unless someone has achieved a zen-like state of pure self-acceptance (and surely that takes time and effort) then we all have made choices that in hindsight we would change. Regret shouldn’t rule us but can steer us to make better choices if we listen to it?