I say this because it can seep in with little warning and consume you. Regret can be useful in helping you recognize things you need to do differently in the future, but that’s about the limit of it’s usefulness. We can’t change the past, but we can change the present and future. If you’re presently living in the past, you’re setting yourself up for more future regrets.
I will tell patients who are wallowing in regret that their present misery will soon be the past. Time is something we can’t get back, so it would be even more unfortunate to realize sometime in the future that you lost years of your life making the same bad decisions because you can’t let go of the past.
Let’s take hypothetical patient John who is CEO of Make Believe Investment Bank. He has four children but was not around while they are growing up because he was always at meetings or traveling. He takes an early retirement at age 55 with a golden parachute worth millions. He’s now ready to enjoy his family and start a new phase of life. As he sits at the Thanksgiving table, he observes his adult and college age children talk amongst themselves about things of which he knows nothing. His wife joins in on the conversation and he feels like a stanger in his home. He suggests getting together with the kids individually, but they aren’t interested and don’t have time. Over time, John gets depressed and hates himself for missing their formative years.
He spends a year isolating himself from his family because he believes they don’t love or appreciate him. He gets involved in an affair which makes him feel good again. Five years later the affair is discovered and his wife leaves him. His children resent him and don’t want to involve him in faimly gatherings.
At the time of his retirement, John was understandably hurt and dissappointed with himself for investing so much himself into his work that he missed seeing his children grow up and compromised his relationship with his wife. He couldn’t change the past, but he could have changed his focus from work, to building up a relationship with his family. Instead, he lost 5 more years living in regret. The coping mechanisms he employed (feeling sorry for himself, having an affair to feel validated) only caused more damage.
Even now, John can turn this around. He has more work to do, but you have to start somewhere. Afterall, he now has grandchildren and if he doesn’t make a change, he’ll miss their lives too. What does he need to do? As for forgiveness from his family, forgive himself, and start over working toward his goal of building intimacy without looking backward.
Hi Vinit. First of all, how in the world did you find this post? ? Thanks for reminding me of this. I wrote this 10 years ago, but it’s still applicable today. You make a great point, family dynamics goes both ways and there should be some flexibility to allow people to change and make amends. In this example, I focusing on John’s private pain going on in his head because he felt disconnected from them. But to your point, some people in his situation are pushed away by family members because of grudge holding.
Again thanks for reminding me of the content on my site – once upon a time I was writing articles 2-3 times a week. I’ll have to go back and look at it and see if there’s something I can turn into a video.
Well written. But it seems to me that John’s family also did not adopt a wise approach. His children should have accepted the fact that their father worked so much to help build their future. So when he retired at 55 and started to spend time with them, they should have let go of emotions which held them back from showing interest in their father.
Giving each other the opportunity to give a fresh start and perspective to life, is very important in any relationship especially in the immediate family. Holding on to grudge and regret related to past, only makes living life in present more difficult and that makes the future vulnerable to same painful experiences. Regretting for a long time starts a vicious cycle of negative emotions