Need Advice: How to live without regret/remorse

[kalrith]

Cliffs: I live with remorse and regret over many of the decisions I make.
Tell me how to not do that, or share some of your own experiences either with remorse/regret or the lack thereof.

For as long as I can remember (I'm 28), I've had a problem with regret and remorse. Not just a little bit, but a pretty major problem. I can think of things that I've done years ago and feel that I wish I had said something or done something different, and often these are very minor things for which I'll have a lot of guilt over.

Lately it's been remorse over some major decisions and some major purchases. For example, I bought a Dell 2408 monitor a few months ago. I got a great deal, and it's an incredible monitor. However, part of me wishes I had bought a 32" 1080P TV instead and the other part wishes I had waited to either get one of two other monitors that are superior and have either recently come out or recently come down into the same price range as my Dell.

Anyways, I'm just wondering how other people deal with this crap. Any tips you have would be great, but I'm really just looking for others' experiences in how they've combatted (or, like me, have failed to combat) living with regret and remorse over past decisions.

Edit: I'll quote a later post so that I don't just sound like a spoiled kid complaining about a monitor purchase:

That was one example, and I was trying to not get too personal, but why the hell not:

• I regret how I treated my mom before she died 13 years ago (I was 15 at the time)
  
  I have zero relationship with my brother (my wife of 7 years hasn't even met him), and I often thought it was all his fault when I was younger, but now I realize that I did many, many things to hurt him.
  
  I'm 28, married, and have a 6mo son, but I often feel like I shouldn't have gotten married in the first place because (1) I'm no longer attracted to my wife (both physically and otherwise) and (2) I feel like I never experienced my 20s like I should have because I went to a strict Bible college and then went straight into marriage at the too-young age of 21. But there's no way in hell that I'm going to have my son grow up in a split home.
  
  I regret the poor decision of buying a new house and remodeling my old one. I bought the new house in March '08 and have spent countless hours remodeling it instead of spending the time with my son. We're also in a big financial bind paying two house payments. I'm probably 60-80 hours of work from completing it.

I guess I'm just in a rethinking-through-life phase right now, questioning past decisions, questioning my faith, questioning my role in this world.

 

[darkxshade]

Easy, just ask youself what Kanye West would do in your situation

 

[tasmanian]

Put it out of your mind and try and not think about it, eventually you will completely block any remorse or guilt attached to it.

 

[Alienwho]

Well are you talking about buyers remorse as in your Dell monitor, or is this a greater thing like "I wish I would have gone to college", etc.

Regardless, you can't live in the past, so no use in fretting over it. I wish I could go back 6 months when the stock market was bottomed out and put my life savings into it instead of just a measly few thousand dollars. I can't do it so I just have to look forward to my next opportunity.

 

[TridenT]

Bitch and whine about it. That will help foh sure!

 

[NoReMoRsE]

Live by my creed! NoReMoRsE.

 

[DesiPower]

grow up, take some real responsibilities, maybe get married...

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Decisions are a learning process. If you make a poor decision, make a mental note of that decision and use what you've learned in the future. Look at it as a refinement of your decision-making process.

Regret and remose, as related to decision making, are useless since you can rarely change the past; so focus on the present and future instead. Self-flagellation is wasted energy.

 

[Yukmouth]

Stop hating yourself and get to work broke azz ... $$$$$$ You can have both .

You're wishing for a 32 inch screen!?!?!?!?! Step your dreams up.

 

[Jesusthewererabbit]

Just go buy more stuff


Whoa the fish trifecta!

 

[JEDI]

Originally posted by: kalrith
Cliffs: I live with remorse and regret over many of the decisions I make.
Tell me how to not do that, or share some of your own experiences either with remorse/regret or the lack thereof.

For as long as I can remember (I'm 28), I've had a problem with regret and remorse. Not just a little bit, but a pretty major problem. I can think of things that I've done years ago and feel that I wish I had said something or done something different, and often these are very minor things for which I'll have a lot of guilt over.

Lately it's been remorse over some major decisions and some major purchases. For example, I bought a Dell 2408 monitor a few months ago. I got a great deal, and it's an incredible monitor. However, part of me wishes I had bought a 32" 1080P TV instead and the other part wishes I had waited to either get one of two other monitors that are superior and have either recently come out or recently come down into the same price range as my Dell.

Anyways, I'm just wondering how other people deal with this crap. Any tips you have would be great, but I'm really just looking for others' experiences in how they've combatted (or, like me, have failed to combat) living with regret and remorse over past decisions.

waaahhh... daddy got me a brand new Mercedes, but i wanted a BMW. waahhh

buyers remorse is one thing. a deep hang up about it is another. seek counseling

 

[OCGuy]

Beer/Wine/Booze. Seriously.

 

[nerp]

Originally posted by: kalrith
Cliffs: I live with remorse and regret over many of the decisions I make.
Tell me how to not do that, or share some of your own experiences either with remorse/regret or the lack thereof.

For as long as I can remember (I'm 28), I've had a problem with regret and remorse. Not just a little bit, but a pretty major problem. I can think of things that I've done years ago and feel that I wish I had said something or done something different, and often these are very minor things for which I'll have a lot of guilt over.

Lately it's been remorse over some major decisions and some major purchases. For example, I bought a Dell 2408 monitor a few months ago. I got a great deal, and it's an incredible monitor. However, part of me wishes I had bought a 32" 1080P TV instead and the other part wishes I had waited to either get one of two other monitors that are superior and have either recently come out or recently come down into the same price range as my Dell.
Anyways, I'm just wondering how other people deal with this crap. Any tips you have would be great, but I'm really just looking for others' experiences in how they've combatted (or, like me, have failed to combat) living with regret and remorse over past decisions.

I thought you were going to tell stories about hurting loved ones -- slamming doors in their faces, lying, cheating, stealing. I thought you were going to recount missed opportunities in which you could have taken a bold step towards your dreams but faltered and continue to fall short your true potential. I expected you to recount moments in which you've talked through your ass, swaggered, been rude or condescending or presumptious about people or issues, only to realize later you were wrong or in error, looking like the fool in retrospect. The same regret a man feels for his behavior as a teenager, writing on walls, cursing out old ladies, taunting the elderly on the road, making children cry.

Instead, you regret a fucking MONITOR PURCHASE? Fucking pathetic. Your lamentations are limp, materialistic and not sympothy-worthy.

 

[kalrith]

Originally posted by: nerp

Originally posted by: kalrith
Cliffs: I live with remorse and regret over many of the decisions I make.
Tell me how to not do that, or share some of your own experiences either with remorse/regret or the lack thereof.

For as long as I can remember (I'm 28), I've had a problem with regret and remorse. Not just a little bit, but a pretty major problem. I can think of things that I've done years ago and feel that I wish I had said something or done something different, and often these are very minor things for which I'll have a lot of guilt over.

Lately it's been remorse over some major decisions and some major purchases. For example, I bought a Dell 2408 monitor a few months ago. I got a great deal, and it's an incredible monitor. However, part of me wishes I had bought a 32" 1080P TV instead and the other part wishes I had waited to either get one of two other monitors that are superior and have either recently come out or recently come down into the same price range as my Dell.
Anyways, I'm just wondering how other people deal with this crap. Any tips you have would be great, but I'm really just looking for others' experiences in how they've combatted (or, like me, have failed to combat) living with regret and remorse over past decisions.

I thought you were going to tell stories about hurting loved ones -- slamming doors in their faces, lying, cheating, stealing. I thought you were going to recount missed opportunities in which you could have taken a bold step towards your dreams but faltered and continue to fall short your true potential. I expected you to recount moments in which you've talked through your ass, swaggered, been rude or condescending or presumptious about people or issues, only to realize later you were wrong or in error, looking like the fool in retrospect. The same regret a man feels for his behavior as a teenager, writing on walls, cursing out old ladies, taunting the elderly on the road, making children cry.

Instead, you regret a fucking MONITOR PURCHASE? Fucking pathetic. Your lamentations are limp, materialistic and not sympothy-worthy.

That was one example, and I was trying to not get too personal, but why the hell not:

• I regret how I treated my mom before she died 13 years ago (I was 15 at the time)
  
  I have zero relationship with my brother (my wife of 7 years hasn't even met him), and I often thought it was all his fault when I was younger, but now I realize that I did many, many things to hurt him.
  
  I'm 28, married, and have a 6mo son, but I often feel like I shouldn't have gotten married in the first place because (1) I'm no longer attracted to my wife (both physically and otherwise) and (2) I feel like I never experienced my 20s like I should have because I went to a strict Bible college and then went straight into marriage at the too-young age of 21. But there's no way in hell that I'm going to have my son grow up in a split home.
  
  I regret the poor decision of buying a new house and remodeling my old one. I bought the new house in March '08 and have spent countless hours remodeling it instead of spending the time with my son. We're also in a big financial bind paying two house payments. I'm probably 60-80 hours of work from completing it.

I guess I'm just in a rethinking-through-life phase right now, questioning past decisions, questioning my faith, questioning my role in this world.

 

[RedArmy]

Text

Edit: Damn timewarps, now my post won't make any sense since it's out of order.

I place 90% of the blame on Fusetalk and 10% on GodlessAstronomer.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Ariely and Shin conducted an experiment on MIT students. They devised a computer game which offered players three doors: Red, Blue, and Green. You started with 100 clicks. You clicked to enter a room. Once in a room, each click netted you between 1-10 cents. You could also switch rooms (at the cost of a click). The rooms were programmed to provide different levels of rewards (there was variation within each room's payoffs, but it was pretty easy to tell which one provided the best payout).
Players tended to try all three rooms, figure out which one had the highest payout, and then spend all their time there. (These are MIT students we're talking about). Then, however, Ariely introduced a new wrinkle: Any door left unvisited for 12 clicks would disappear forever. With each click, the unclicked doors shrank by 1/12th.

Now, players jumped from door to door, trying to keep their options open.They made 15% less money; in fact, by choosing any of the doors and sticking with it, they could have made more money.

Ariely increased the cost of opening a door to 3 cents; no change--players still seemed compelled to keeping their options open. Ariely told participants the exact monetary payoff of each door; no change. Ariely allowed participants as many practice runs as they wanted before the actual experiment; no change. Ariely changed the rules so that any door could be "reincarnated" with a single click; no change.

Players just couldn't tolerate the idea of the loss, and so they did whatever was necessary to prevent their doors from closing, even though disappearance had no real consequences and could be easily reversed. We feel compelled to preserve options, even at great expense, even when it doesn't make sense.

The moral here is that you were better off making a decision, even if it wasn't the optimal one. Some people become paralyzed by decisions like whether to go for the 24" monitor or the 32" TV. The time and stress involved in making the decision outweigh the values and losses involved in just pulling the trigger. If you had bought the 32" TV instead, I'll bet you would now be agonizing over the loss of the 24" monitor. Humans are wired to focus on loss instead of gain. Try to consider the benefits of what you gained (the monitor) instead of the detriments of what you've lost (the TV). Don't bother considering the potential benefits of having bought the TV - that door is closed, stop trying to click it.

 

[kalrith]

Originally posted by: GodlessAstronomer

Ariely and Shin conducted an experiment on MIT students. They devised a computer game which offered players three doors: Red, Blue, and Green. You started with 100 clicks. You clicked to enter a room. Once in a room, each click netted you between 1-10 cents. You could also switch rooms (at the cost of a click). The rooms were programmed to provide different levels of rewards (there was variation within each room's payoffs, but it was pretty easy to tell which one provided the best payout).
Players tended to try all three rooms, figure out which one had the highest payout, and then spend all their time there. (These are MIT students we're talking about). Then, however, Ariely introduced a new wrinkle: Any door left unvisited for 12 clicks would disappear forever. With each click, the unclicked doors shrank by 1/12th.

Now, players jumped from door to door, trying to keep their options open.They made 15% less money; in fact, by choosing any of the doors and sticking with it, they could have made more money.

Ariely increased the cost of opening a door to 3 cents; no change--players still seemed compelled to keeping their options open. Ariely told participants the exact monetary payoff of each door; no change. Ariely allowed participants as many practice runs as they wanted before the actual experiment; no change. Ariely changed the rules so that any door could be "reincarnated" with a single click; no change.

Players just couldn't tolerate the idea of the loss, and so they did whatever was necessary to prevent their doors from closing, even though disappearance had no real consequences and could be easily reversed. We feel compelled to preserve options, even at great expense, even when it doesn't make sense.

The moral here is that you were better off making a decision, even if it wasn't the optimal one. Some people become paralyzed by decisions like whether to go for the 24" monitor or the 32" TV. The time and stress involved in making the decision outweigh the values and losses involved in just pulling the trigger. If you had bought the 32" TV instead, I'll bet you would now be agonizing over the loss of the 24" monitor. Humans are wired to focus on loss instead of gain. Try to consider the benefits of what you gained (the monitor) instead of the detriments of what you've lost (the TV). Don't bother considering the potential benefits of having bought the TV - that door is closed, stop trying to click it.

That's a very interesting and enlightening study. It describes my buyer's remorse to a tee. I'll try to actually look at purchases like that from now on. Thanks for the help.

As far as my remorse about life, I had some time to think and reflect on things this evening. I think I just need to grow up and be a man who takes responsibility for his choices instead of a boy who feels like he got jipped out of partying in his 20s and not having so many responsibilities. It's not like anyone forced me to make the choices I did. I chose the life I have now, and I need to make the best of it not only for my sake but also for the sake of my wife and son.

Unfortunately realizing what I need to do and doing it are two different things. Hopefully I can follow through on things, and hopefully I feel the same way come tomorrow.

 

[SandEagle]

i used to be like this. but then i figured, you live once. you want something, get it and get over it. can't put a price on happiness

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Originally posted by: kalrith

Originally posted by: nerp

Originally posted by: kalrith
Cliffs: I live with remorse and regret over many of the decisions I make.
Tell me how to not do that, or share some of your own experiences either with remorse/regret or the lack thereof.

For as long as I can remember (I'm 28), I've had a problem with regret and remorse. Not just a little bit, but a pretty major problem. I can think of things that I've done years ago and feel that I wish I had said something or done something different, and often these are very minor things for which I'll have a lot of guilt over.

Lately it's been remorse over some major decisions and some major purchases. For example, I bought a Dell 2408 monitor a few months ago. I got a great deal, and it's an incredible monitor. However, part of me wishes I had bought a 32" 1080P TV instead and the other part wishes I had waited to either get one of two other monitors that are superior and have either recently come out or recently come down into the same price range as my Dell.
Anyways, I'm just wondering how other people deal with this crap. Any tips you have would be great, but I'm really just looking for others' experiences in how they've combatted (or, like me, have failed to combat) living with regret and remorse over past decisions.

I thought you were going to tell stories about hurting loved ones -- slamming doors in their faces, lying, cheating, stealing. I thought you were going to recount missed opportunities in which you could have taken a bold step towards your dreams but faltered and continue to fall short your true potential. I expected you to recount moments in which you've talked through your ass, swaggered, been rude or condescending or presumptious about people or issues, only to realize later you were wrong or in error, looking like the fool in retrospect. The same regret a man feels for his behavior as a teenager, writing on walls, cursing out old ladies, taunting the elderly on the road, making children cry.

Instead, you regret a fucking MONITOR PURCHASE? Fucking pathetic. Your lamentations are limp, materialistic and not sympothy-worthy.

That was one example, and I was trying to not get too personal, but why the hell not:

• I regret how I treated my mom before she died 13 years ago (I was 15 at the time)
  
  I have zero relationship with my brother (my wife of 7 years hasn't even met him), and I often thought it was all his fault when I was younger, but now I realize that I did many, many things to hurt him.
  
  I'm 28, married, and have a 6mo son, but I often feel like I shouldn't have gotten married in the first place because (1) I'm no longer attracted to my wife (both physically and otherwise) and (2) I feel like I never experienced my 20s like I should have because I went to a strict Bible college and then went straight into marriage at the too-young age of 21. But there's no way in hell that I'm going to have my son grow up in a split home.
  
  I regret the poor decision of buying a new house and remodeling my old one. I bought the new house in March '08 and have spent countless hours remodeling it instead of spending the time with my son. We're also in a big financial bind paying two house payments. I'm probably 60-80 hours of work from completing it.

I guess I'm just in a rethinking-through-life phase right now, questioning past decisions, questioning my faith, questioning my role in this world.

Yo! You got WAY more problems than remorse/regret. Get some counseling.

 

[IronWing]

Learn to blame others for your mistakes.

 

[BeauJangles]

Seriously just try to remember that everything that happens in life is an opportunity to learn something. Nobody's life is perfect, so don't expect yours to be!

 

[Q]

kal:

I am going through something right now that I can't stop thinking about and regret doing. It's nothing that 'messed up' my life in any way, I just wish I would have done something different. It is really really hard to stop thinking about, but the thing that helps me is to tell myself that I just did what I thought was best for me at the time. It's the truth, and even though it didn't work out like I thought, I learned from the experience.

Drop me a PM with a more 'serious' issue if you'd like (by this I mean not about buying a monitor) - sometimes venting to others (even if you don't know them) can really help you feel better.

 

[alkemyst]

seriously...

first do whatever the fuck it takes to make you comfortable with yourself. Sacrifice if you have to.

then once comfortable, you will always know that only...regret and remorse become rarities.

Sadness is a different emotion, you can be top of your world and experience that...if you don't I believe something is majorly wrong.

 

[Howard]

Originally posted by: TridenT
Bitch and whine about it. That will turn you into me!

But do you really want that, OP?

 

[Mo0o]

You should try talking to a counselor/therapist if you have the money for it. Sounds like the major problems really lie in a lot of suppressed emotions regarding your mother. Definitely would be good to talk it out w/ a trained professional. At least try it out a couple of times to see how it feels.