Let's Fight Some Skeletons
The tug of war between happiness and guilt
We’ve all got skeletons in the closet but that’s a good thing. If you never make mistakes, you’re never taking risks, and risks are a necessary part of human progress. Think of the most successful person you know—it’s inevitable that she or he took many risks in their life to get where they are today. Unfortunately, when risks don’t pay off, they frequently lead to regrets that can haunt us for the rest of our lives. But you don’t have to let them haunt you. In fact, let’s put a positive spin on the psychological torture of regret!
Wrestling with regret
What exactly happens to you when you feel regret? For me, it usually happens in the middle of the night when I’m struggling to sleep. A terrible memory will suddenly pop into my head with a taunting note of “Remember that time you embarrassed yourself? Never forget that you embarrassed yourself.” Shame is an important human emotion, and your mind uses it to make sure you remember your mistakes and never repeat them.
But sometimes, regrets become unmanageable and even irrational. They can make people shy away from taking important risks and making tough decisions. Fortunately, there is a science to killing the skeletons in your closet. Here are three evidence-based ways to adjust your thinking and take control of your regrets so that they no longer torture you:
Choose acceptance over being judgmental—we all love a good gossip but too much can turn your mind toward permanent pessimism. When you judge others regularly, you end up fearing how they may be judging you in return. When you instead accept the world as it is, you begin to feel accepted in return. Instead of fighting against bad memories, practice accepting your regrets and the negative emotions they evoke inside you by reliving them in your mind as a neutral observer. When you accept them without judgment as passing conscious experiences rather than sadistic invaders, you may be surprised with how quickly they let go of you.
Get out of your house—past Brainlifts have emphasized the value of varying your environment during the day, especially when it includes spending time in nature. When you stay in one place for too long, you begin to feel trapped and your mind dredges up your worst memories to keep you company. The new stimulation of taking a walk outside or heading to a cafe for an hour can be deeply refreshing, and helps to put your worries back into a sensible perspective.
People love you—scientists have recently discovered “the liking gap”, which is our consistent tendency to underestimate how much other people like us. When two people first meet and have a chat, they leave the conversation believing the other person likes them less than they actually do. You can correct this hurtful bias by dismissing common worries such as, “I think I said something that upset them” or “They seemed unimpressed with me”. These worries aren’t only bad for your mental health, they’re also likely to be wrong!
What does remorse feel like?
Emily Dickinson—one of the most talented poets the world has ever seen—wrote about remorse in circa 1863. Few people could say it better, so here is her poem comparing the feeling of remorse to hell itself:
Remorse is memory awake,
Her companies astir,—
A presence of departed acts
At window and at door.
It's past set down before the soul,
And lighted with a match,
Perusal to facilitate
Of its condensed despatch.
Remorse is cureless,—the disease
Not even God can heal;
For 't is his institution,—
The complement of hell.
That final quote
Final words today go to the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), who emphasized the futility of trying to avoid regret completely:
“I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations—one can do either this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it—you will regret both.”
The truth is we frequently end up regretting our choices, regardless of their outcomes. When we take a job, we worry that it was the wrong job and we shouldn’t have given up another opportunity. When we don’t take a job, we worry that we missed out on an important offer that we may never get again. “The grass is always greener on the other side”, as they say. So never let uncertainty scare you away from big decisions, and don’t let regrets consume your perceptions of past decisions.
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