Posts Tagged: the harm of regrets

“No Regrets!”

On February 5, 2019 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer


“Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.’” (John Greenleaf Whittier)

Today, I wrote the following in my journal, right after listing 50 items on my gratitude list:

“Today, God, no regrets!  Just praise, humility, obedience and gratitude!”

Like virtually every other human being who has lived more than four years, I have regrets.  In fact, I probably have more than the average member of my species.  Regret for the things I’ve done and the things I haven’t, regret for the people I’ve harmed, regret for not living out my own principles.

But these days, while not minimizing my screw-ups, I try to not wallow in regret.  While I have regrets, I try not to let the regrets have me.  The truth is this: Regrets have no beneficial effects, and many harmful ones.

How are regrets harmful?  Let me count the ways!

First, they can’t change what happened or what I did.  The past is a pretty stubborn critter.  I may reframe it or look at it differently, but the picture itself is not going to change.  I can learn from it, but I can’t teach it a single thing.  In terms of the Serenity Prayer, the past is one of the things I cannot change.  Therefore, I need God to “. . . grant me the serenity to accept the (past) things I cannot change . . . .”

Second, regrets harm my ability to move on, to grow, to become a better person.  What gets my focus gets me.  If I am focusing on the past, I am very likely to go back to the past.  In any case, as long as I am filled with regrets, I am refusing to live in the present.  And, the last time I checked, the present was the only time when I could live.  To live in the past is to die before my time.  I am a walking dead man when I regret my past.

Third (and related to the first two harmful effect of regret), regrets are an insidious form of self-deception.  When I regret, I am pretending that I am taking my past seriously.  I am not.  I am trying to substitute feeling bad for doing what is good in the here and now.  Allowing regrets to dominate me compromises the very positive qualities that I listed in my journal: “praise, humility, obedience and gratitude!”

Fourth, when I indulge in regrets, I am harming others.  How so?  When I am filled with regrets, I am not really available to those around me. And those around me need me.  I am focused on myself, when I regret my past.  Regretting my past is trying to drive a car, while steadfastly looking in the rearview mirror.  It is just a matter of time before I rear-end the car in front of me or run over a pedestrian.

Finally, regret is a form of atheism.  I am pretending that I am a competent judge of myself.  I am also pretending that my past attitudes, actions, thoughts, and words are too bad to be forgiven.  As a Christian, this is a form of heresy, bordering on a denial of the very existence and goodness of God.  Living even on the border of atheism is a dangerous place to live.

So, just for today, no regrets.  No looking back.  No beating myself up.  Just living well.  Just awareness.  Just love.

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