Regret

There are a lot of things I know I should like but I just can’t bring myself to liking. 

A couple of years ago I confessed to one of my aunts that I can’t make myself like The Beatles.  I feel like I’m supposed to like The Beatles.  I recognize that The Beatles are iconic because they revolutionized music.  They pushed the envelope and did things that hadn’t been done before.  The energy that they created around themselves was endemic and infectious.  Some people would argue that Beatles lyrics are some of the best lyrics ever composed.  I identify all of this and I respect all of this but I just can’t bring myself to like The Beatles. 

Here’s another example.  I love movies that are crafted well and tell character driven stories.  We don’t get to see many of these in our local theatres anymore because of how formulaic Hollywood has become; they know what sells and so they create products that sell rather than art that speaks and lives.  So, if I say that I like artistic movies and avoid the mass produced and highly predictable dross that flows from the major production companies, you would think I would like classic movies, right?  Wrong.  I can’t stand so called classic movies.  Case in point:  Every Christmas season I struggle with the people in my life that need to watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Miracle on 34^th Street” because these “classic” movies speak to a human condition that seems to be front and center during the holidays.  Again, I know I should like these movies and movies like them but I just can’t bring myself to actually liking them. 

Now all of that isn’t to say that I find nothing of use to me from the artists behind these mediums.  I can appreciate a moving lyric from a Beatles song or a line from a film that resonates with something inside of me.  I’ll find comfort and challenge from these things but I just can’t bring myself to be a stalwart supporter or diehard fan. 

More often than not I’ll find a better connection with the individual apart from his or her art.  John Lennon just talking off the cuff, for instance, is more likely to get a reaction from me than any carefully crafted composition. 

Well…maybe John Lennon isn’t the best example.  To be honest I can’t call to mind anything he ever said in an interview that seemed to have stuck with me.

A better example would be the Italian film maker Federico Fellini.  If you aren’t familiar with his name or his work (films like “La Dolce Vida”) you might be able to recognize him from his infiltration into popular culture.  The illustration which immediately comes to mind is the 2003 novel turned film “Under the Tuscan Sun” starring Diane Lane.  One of the characters in the film (Catherine, played by the indomitable Lindsey Duncan) was greatly influence personally and philosophically by Il Meastro.   

One of the things that film maker Fellini said apart from his work as a film maker that even makes an appearance in “Under the Tuscan Sun” is this quote:  “Regrets are a waste of time. They're the past crippling you in the present.”  I like this quote not because of what it says but because of what it made me think. 

I think this quote is an over simplification.  If Fellini was alive and working today I might try to accuse him of employing bumper sticker philosophy or selling out to the soundbite culture.  It’s a catchy comment that feels true but I think it’s actually a statement that doesn’t really consider the psychology of the word “regret” and how I think it can and should be used in our day to day lives. 

Now that I’ve accused FeFe of an oversimplification, let me make one of my own.

I think there are fundamentally two types of regret.  The first type is the regret we feel when we do or say something and almost immediately realize that that wasn’t the thing to do or say.  I remember when I was growing up and my extended family had gotten together for dinner and games and just spending time in each other’s company.  A skiing trip was being planned and I had absolutely no interest in it.  My aunts and uncles were trying to convince me to come along going so far as to point out that skiing was how my one uncle met his at-the-time-fiancee.  I immediately commented that if that was the case I definitely wasn’t interested in going.  As soon as I said it, the words I thought would be funny, rang in my ears and sliced deep into my pride.  I had shot my mouth off without even thinking.  I immediately regretted the words.

The second is the regret that we feel over something we have absolutely no control over.  It’s that thing that we did in that past, maybe born of good intentions, that unfolded in a way that we could not have predicted or foreseen, that complicated our lives and/or the lives of the people around us.  This is the regret we feel over words or actions that were said or done with the best of intentions based on the information at hand.  It’s typically the regret we feel as we grow older or information becomes more available or knowledge becomes more reliable. 

I think this is the regret we feel as a whole when we think about things like slavery and colonialism.   It’s the regret that many of us in the LGBT community feel when we look back on our lives, having made the decision to keep our identities hidden because, based on the information we had at the time, it was the only viable option.  We become trapped by those choices and the lives that we create around them.  We eventually fear the damage that could be done if we tried to correct these mistakes. 

I also think it’s this second type of regret that Fellini was referring to when he commented that regrets are the past crippling us in the present.  The first type of regret will definitely make us feel stupid and stir up feelings of remorse and shame, but I think it’s this second type of regret that can become so guilt ridden that we end up causing ourselves problems by carrying it around with us.

I believe that emotions like guilt and shame and regret, when understood properly, are important tools in our journey of becoming.  We experience emotion to tell us when something is right or wrong, joyous or frightening, off-kilter or copacetic. What is more is that it usually takes time to gain perspective and objectivity with regard to choices that create feelings of regret of both kinds.  Sure there are those moments (like the example I just gave involving my uncle and his (now) wife) when you open your mouth to realize you’ve got some toe jam stuck in your teeth but usually regret is looking at your past and realizing how stupid some of the things you’ve said and done actually are.  More importantly, regret is looking at your past and understanding why some of the things you’ve said and done probably weren’t the best choices you’ve ever made.  This understanding piece is so incredibly critical; without the understanding of why and without asking yourself questions to uncover the why you’ll never be able to learn and grow from the uncomfortable experience.  You’ll be stuck in that past and needlessly carrying the weight of that regret around with you into the future. 

Unlike Fellini seems to be indicating in his statement, I don’t believe that regrets cripple us in the present unless we let them.  If we choose not to address them, ask ourselves questions about them, and become okay with the answers we discover, we will be burdened with them.  Otherwise it’s like everything else in our lives when we gain some distance in time and are able to be objective:  We look for the patterns and themes and take those lessons forward so that we become better people. 

When you read a book, the author will typically establish certain “givens” that you have to accept to make the story move forward.  You can wonder about some of these givens, what certain characters were thinking when they made certain choices or why this fictional world works the way the author says it does but in the end, if you want to move on with the story, you have to come to accept these givens and then look at how these givens affect the story. 

It’s the same with our individual lives as we consider our own stories.  Particularly with that second form of regret that is so much more complex than the first.  When we look at our lives and the bad things that happen to us and sometimes, more importantly, the bad things that we do to ourselves, we struggle to make sense of things.  We can and we should ask ourselves why we did these things and how we ever thought they would be okay but at the end of the day we have to take our lessons and move on.  We have to accept the “given” of the event and say to ourselves, “That’s just the way it is.  I can’t change it.  So how is it going to affect my story?”

My 2016 self, with its knowledge and experience and perspective, can literally stand here and scream at my 1980’s self and my 1990’s self about decisions I made which ignored the needs of my identity but at the time, in that time with the information available to me, it was the best and only decision I could make.  Of course I know better now, as we all do, but I can’t live in a place where I am constantly berating myself for the stupidity of that decision.  I can’t live in a place where I allow the guilt and the shame of choices like these to consume me.  In the end these choices become givens in the story of my life.  I cannot allow myself to be continuously victimized by choices I made in good faith at the time that set me up for future problems.  And more than that, it’s not just about me.  The regret I feel becomes all the more poignant when I consider how those choices have affected and will affect the people around me, the people I care most about.  If I chose not to allow these choices to become givens after exploring the regret they have generated after time has passed and more knowledge is gained, I would never be allowed to move forward with my story let alone my life.  

Regrets don’t necessarily have to cripple us in our present unless we give them that much power.  With all due respect to Federico Fellini, regret is an opportunity to learn from the past to empower us in our present if we choose to ask the critical questions and incorporate even the most uncomfortable of answers into our stories.  It’s hard and sometimes painful work but knowledge, like anything of value, should never come easy.