There is no shortage of quotes about regret and how one should live without it. Those are all fine, as far as they go. But is it possible to live without regret? I do not believe any human can live a life without any regret. The benefits of hindsight are such that we may always find something we wish we had done better, or said differently, or didn’t do at all.
I do not mean to say that we cannot limit or reduce the amount of regrets we have. When we are our best selves, the people we wish to be, we are much less likely to have regret. That means living with our heart fully engaged, and with us in touch with our true self, our best self.
We must not only dare to dream, but to act on those dreams. It is when we do not act in accord with our dreams, our best self, that we experience much of our regret. This is the regret many of the inspirational quotes try to address. The message is essentially- be fearless; act with hope; act with belief; act with confidence.
The other form of regret is the actions we do, or words we speak, that are not rooted in love. Everyone has said something hurtful to someone who they love, or done something vindictive or mean to a loved one. This is also not our best self, not the person who we wish to be. Acting and speaking with an engaged heart, full of love, is one of the surest ways to limit these regrets.
If we are acting and speaking to limit regret, what else can we do to live in a manner consistent with who we want to be? We can transform regret into a powerful impetus for change. Remember, hindsight has its benefits.
We can use hindsight as a cudgel with which to beat ourselves up, or we can use it to appreciate our mistakes, as they present a great opportunity to develop our ability to be the person we want to be. When we go the cudgel route, we not only lose out on a magnificent opportunity for growth, but we may push ourselves further away from our best self. Just as the student benefits from constructive criticism, so do we. When we use the cudgel of hindsight, we tear ourselves down. We have transformed whatever bad action or words that we may have done or said into a knife aimed at our own heart. Does the person who was the target of your words or deed become better off by knowing that you now have beaten yourself up at least as much as you did them? Of course not.
However, when we encounter regret and transform it into a force for change, we benefit not only ourselves, but everyone else in the world. We transform the suffering into joy. There is real suffering when we are not our best selves and we are able to recognize it. By using hindsight, we can see where our actions or words were not consistent with our best self. This knowledge is more powerful than all the learning in the world.
We can take this knowledge and use it as a guide for how to better connect with our best self. We can begin to understand how fear, anger, jealousy, and a host of other emotions, in their extreme, can divorce us from our true selves. When we understand why we acted or spoke in that manner, we can resolve never to do so again, when faced with a similar circumstance. Not only are we able to do better in that given situation the next time, but we begin to understand how we react when faced with anger, fear, jealousy, etc. In this understanding lies the path to living a life without regret. Instead, we live a life where we are constantly aspiring to be our best selves.
Suburban Buddhism 