graduation at apu was last weekend. and if any phrase was spoken more than another, it was, "i regret that i didn't _______." people filled that blank with various things, including but not limited to spending time with certain people, spending more time with people, taking more interesting (albeit tougher) classes, this that and the other.
now to take a relatively radical stance on the topic of regret, i would like to propose that regret is worthless without a second ingredient - action. action is necessary for two reasons: talk is cheap and the past cannot be changed. when i hear people talk about regretting things in life, what is the purpose? they are paying lip service to the wish that something would have been different. but the past is immutable and talking about it will not change what happened. that is why action is the necessary cofactor to accompany regret. for if i say, "i regret not spending more time with this friend" does that mean in the future i will spend more time with them or even give up something in order to spend more time with them? sure, i can sit here and wish i had more hours in the day so that i could do more, befriend many, and have new experiences. but the hours in a day are not changing so unless i actually want to change something in the future, expressing regret is mostly lip service.
i suppose i'm trying to say that regret is not a terrible thing, but if not accompanied by action it is empty. regret that spurs on action can be powerful because it is actually able to change the future.
so for a weird, pseudo-optomistic spin on the topic, don't regret anything that happened unless you plan on changing the future.
