Controlled Regret August 27th, 2018

There are some things that we as people cannot change. We have limitations.
I don’t want to spend much time on this because I want to empower you to see that change can happen in your life. But what I want you to stop doing is trying to change things that you can’t and devote that energy to things that you can. Most importantly you cannot change other people. I cannot control you, I cannot make you agree with this , I cannot make you better, but you can. Realize that you cannot change anyone else and start working on changing yourself. Use these concepts on yourself, even though it is tempting to go around and accurately critique others, you can critique them but you can’t change them. Also, you cannot change the past or future.
Regret has a very specific function. It is a negative memory that exists in your brain to keep you from repeating the same thing that caused the regret in the first place. If you had no regret it would be difficult to learn from your mistakes because you would not be able to make the connection between the negative feeling and whatever actions cause it.
            So if I write something foolish on this page and realize it I may think to myself. I regret writing that and that recognition will keep me from writing the same foolish thing on the next page. Regret is just information about your past that tells you what not to do in the present. Unfortunately, many people are plagued by constant regret. Anyone who is doing something now that they have regretted in the past is missing out on the simple idea that regret is information. These people start to hate their past which is where the regret is coming from. Then they start to hate the present where the action that is triggering the feeling of regret is coming from and then sure enough based on the past and present they start to have expectations about the future. They start to expect that regret will always be a part of their lives, that it is unavoidable like aging.
The good news is that once a person realizes that regret is just information to help us learn they can change the current behavior that is causing it. This is figuring out the riddle of regret. At this time the expectation that their future has to be filled regret goes away. The future opens up and starts to have possibility. This process of learning from regret has to be repeated over and over. Most of us don’t have just one regret so the process of learning from regret can’t happen just once but over and over until our regret list starts to get shorter and shorter.

* I look back at my life and try to remind myself to find that perfect balance between seeing regret as information to  not repeat a mistake but not getting swallowed up by regret and having it hold me back. mastering controlled regret is a daily challenge.