THAT'S MEN:I GREW up on a farm and when I was in my early teens, my father bought me three or four sheep which I could eventually sell.
I remember him standing at the far side of the farmyard with the sheep which he had unloaded from a trailer and calling me over. I got into a teenage huff because whatever terribly important thing I was doing had been interrupted.
When he told me the sheep were mine, I went and examined them, but still, I am ashamed to say, with ill grace.
He had little money and had done a generous thing. He deserved a more enthusiastic response than the one he got from me. Had he noticed it? I don’t know. He said nothing, but I am sure he expected more.
Many people will think this a small matter, but I have always regretted my behaviour on that occasion.
Eventually, I sold the sheep and brought some of the money in to Mick Rafferty’s electrical shop in Naas and bought my first record player, blue and white with rounded corners. When I was leaving, he put his hand under the counter and brought out a fistful of jazz records which he gave me free of charge.
The record player is gone, but I still have the records and I play them now and again. When I do, one of the sensations that comes back is regret over my behaviour in the farmyard on that day.
It all came back to me – again – when I watched a presentation on regret by Kathryn Schulz (author of Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error) on TED.com which broadcasts fascinating talks on a variety of subjects.
She quoted research suggesting that regrets about education top the league table. Some 32 per cent of people cited this as a source of regret. Next come regrets about careers, 22 per cent, and romance, 15 per cent. Only 2.5 per cent had regrets about finances.
I am assuming she was quoting US research and I suspect regrets about financial misjudgments might rank higher in Ireland at the moment.
She also talked about four key characteristics of regret.
The first was denial. When she settled in New York after much travelling, she got a tattoo – and regretted it the moment she left the shop. She spent the night trying to figure out ways to get rid of it.
Every time you suffer from “buyer’s remorse” and try to reverse a purchase that seemed like a good idea at the time, you are in the denial phase. Unfortunately you can’t hand back a tattoo, so she’s stuck with it.
Next is bewilderment as in “How could I have done that?” Recognise that feeling? Oh, yes! By the time regret hits you, it’s probably too late for a satisfactory answer to the question.
Third comes self-punishment: I could kick myself, what a horrible/stupid person I am, etc.
And fourth is repetition (or perseveration as she calls it). Regrets come back and back and back.
If you could forget about a “regret” after feeling it once, it wouldn’t be a regret. Almost by definition, regret is like Kathryn Schulz’s tattoo – you can’t get rid of it.
So what’s to be done? She suggests acknowledging that, yes, it is often right and proper to regret your behaviour.
You don’t have to fight the fact that you have this regret – if you regret some action or inaction that you really ought to regret, then regret.
But accepting the regret doesn’t have to mean keeping up that self-punishing attitude.
After all, regretting a behaviour means you amount to more than that – your
values are intact even if you didn’t live up to them on that occasion.
For more, see her presentation at TED.com
(type her name into the search box). It’s only 16 minutes long and – and you get to see her tattoo.
Padraig O’Morain (pomorain@ireland.com) is accredited as a counsellor by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. His book,
Light Mind – Mindfulness for Daily Living
, is published by Veritas. His mindfulness newsletter is free by e-mail.