Irrelevant regrets

As people grow older, the one thing everybody seems to accumulate is regrets. They look back and regret doing or not doing certain things. Or at least that’s what they say. ‘I wish I hadn’t done that…’.
For some reason, I’ve been hearing a lot about regrets recently. Mostly from people I know and I’ve been close for the better part of my life. While nodding outwardly and mumbling some customary ‘well, don’t beat yourself over that..’, my very judgmental inner bitch person was furiously shaking her head. Because people tend to regret not the act itself, but rather the consequences.
Say you’ve dumped a decent guy for whatever trivial reason and chose to marry another who turned out to be sort of an asshole. Do you actually regret the actual dumping part? Any consideration for the heartbreak you might have caused? Nope, the regret is all about you having made a bad deal and suffering the consequences…
Had your life turned out pretty decent you wouldn’t spare a thought on the guy you dumped 20 years ago…

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Another thing that bothers me about regrets is usually they come with some sort of excuse, like ‘such were the times back then’, ‘my parents insisted I study this’, ‘I needed the money’. That’s just half-a-regret, as there someone else to blame for your own failings. It’s quite rare to hear people say they didn’t have the guts to do something, stand up for themselves, take a bloody risk…
“Not following your passion” is one of the most common regrets and one that can easily be blamed on others or ‘circumstances’. OK, so you didn’t take up painting and became a lawyer as your parents told you and your peers expected of you… Sorry, but you’re the only one to blame here - you probably realized the road to success would be hard, you’d have little to show, there’d be little money in it… and you didn’t want to make a fool of yourself…
Obviously, you cannot say things like that in a face-to-face conversation. Once people voice some regret, you’re expected to show understanding, commiseration and reassure them they had no choice… You cannot really say ‘well, that was quite stupid of you’ or ‘you were such a dick’, can you?
At the same time, regrets are pointless since there’s nothing you can do about them. What’s done is done, it’s water under the bridge, you have to live with whatever you did or did not do. End of story.
Except, of course, not investing in Bitcoin ten years ago, a regret we all have… But then again, ten years ago what mattered most was spending the day with the kids in the park… do I regret that? Not really…

Thanks for reading