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Tortured by regrets? A new study details how best to overcome them

latimes.com

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Re: Tortured by regrets? A new study details how best to overcome them

#21

Post by johnchristopher »

boogieknite wrote: post #14

Study was a bit silly. Losing $10 in a game of chance is one type of regret but real regret is normally several shades darker, or at least more embarrassing. Could make an anecdotal argument that losing a small stakes game of chance is one of the easiest levels of regret to move on from. Anyone whos seen a casino on tv could tell you this. (EMPHASIS: SMALL STAKES. Yes, gambling at advanced levels is as dark as anythi…

> The movie Challengers this year portrayed the most relatable depiction of regret ive ever seen. Made me feel like the intrusive memories of mistakes i live with daily, and keep to myself, are a universal experience. Knowing that living with regret is part of life helped me embrace it. Now i can think of it as, "my brain doing that thing that all brains do" then move on without a mental breakdown.

Thanks, I didn't want to watch that movie because even though I was interested by the setting I was not interested in the drama (and headlines I read in my feeds made it clear it was about drama). But your comment makes me reconsider.

Yeah, regrets like not telling "I love you" or telling it or "let's wait a bit before becoming parents" or "let's go for this career" or "don't call that friend back", etc. Those regrets.

Try not to make up too many regrets, people.

Re: Tortured by regrets? A new study details how best to overcome them

#23

Post by jajko »

jamal-kumar wrote: post #10

I think I had a huge lesson early on in life where I generated a huge amount of bitcoin in 2009 on some old pentium 4 CPU (you could do that back then!) and would have basically won the lottery if I hadn't basically just given it away to a friend of mine who was trying to do something (Which ended up being getting scammed by that butterfly labs scheme)... That friend ended up probably one of the most anxious people I…

A very healthy life perspective, one you can't just get without walking the proverbial line and looking back. At the end, probably the best path for you, but greed can be a powerful emotion even for strongest personalities.

Re: Tortured by regrets? A new study details how best to overcome them

#24

Post by hunter-gatherer »

paulpauper wrote: post #19
jamal-kumar wrote: post #10

I think I had a huge lesson early on in life where I generated a huge amount of bitcoin in 2009 on some old pentium 4 CPU (you could do that back then!) and would have basically won the lottery if I hadn't basically just given it away to a friend of mine who was trying to do something (Which ended up being getting scammed by that butterfly labs scheme)... That friend ended up probably one of the most anxious people I…

how much is huge? thousands? I know it was easy back then to generate btc. You probably would have sold them at $10 or something ,congratulated yourself, and then felt massive regret anyway

This was my experience with litecoin. I bought some back in the day when it was < $1 from my minimum wage job and sold it all when it "skyrocketed" to somewhere above $1. In the end I made a few thousand dollars and thought pretty good about it. Only a couple years later when it touched (if I recall correctly) close to $300 did I have regrets. Oh well.

Re: Tortured by regrets? A new study details how best to overcome them

#25

Post by ericmcer »

boogieknite wrote: post #14

Study was a bit silly. Losing $10 in a game of chance is one type of regret but real regret is normally several shades darker, or at least more embarrassing. Could make an anecdotal argument that losing a small stakes game of chance is one of the easiest levels of regret to move on from. Anyone whos seen a casino on tv could tell you this. (EMPHASIS: SMALL STAKES. Yes, gambling at advanced levels is as dark as anythi…

Totally agree. For the 'Portfolio' strategy to be effective you need all the bets to be of a comparable size. If I place 20 $1 bets and 1 $10,000 bet, winning the $1 ones is going to be cold comfort to losing the $10,000 one.

Similarly if I regret a 10 year relationship that ends in divorce, something like finding a great new restaurant isn't going to even that out.

Re: Tortured by regrets? A new study details how best to overcome them

#26

Post by roninorder »

AlbertCory wrote: post #9

I just rewatched Drive My Car . The director has a new movie that's quite different, but if you want to watch a deep exploration of grief and regret, that's your movie. Now I wish I knew Uncle Vanya better.

Haven't watched Drive My Car yet, but just from the trailer it looks like it's exploring loss and grief rather than the most poignant type of regret of losing something due to own action (or inaction). I.e. having agency and being directly responsible for loss.

Re: Tortured by regrets? A new study details how best to overcome them

#27

Post by Fraterkes »

jamal-kumar wrote: post #10

I think I had a huge lesson early on in life where I generated a huge amount of bitcoin in 2009 on some old pentium 4 CPU (you could do that back then!) and would have basically won the lottery if I hadn't basically just given it away to a friend of mine who was trying to do something (Which ended up being getting scammed by that butterfly labs scheme)... That friend ended up probably one of the most anxious people I…

I don't mean to pry but I often see people make statements along the lines of 'if Id been rich when I was younger I wouldve died' and I never quite get it. Just drugs stuff?

Re: Tortured by regrets? A new study details how best to overcome them

#28

Post by roninorder »

haswell wrote: post #8
brodouevencode wrote: post #2

Faith and religion also work well.

Read about the notion of “spiritual bypass”. Yes, people turn to faith and religion. But this often amounts to a complete bypass of actually processing/reframing difficult feelings (like regret) and instead of learning to use those feelings to learn/grow and make your future less regretful, they’re offloaded onto some entity who is supposed to carry the load for you. It works for some people for a period of time beca…

I witnessed spiritual bypass many times in the context of people becoming "spiritual" as an emotional avoidance strategy. It's even more tragic in my experience because at least traditional religions have very strong and developed frameworks for addressing various types of grief - both individually and as a group.

Modern-day spiritualism is dominated by shallow inspiration masquerading as profound psychological and medical insight. Courses on "raising vibrational frequency", literal belief in astrology, crystal healing, etc.

Re: Tortured by regrets? A new study details how best to overcome them

#29

Post by croes »

brodouevencode wrote: post #2

Faith and religion also work well.

Does it? Or is it just shifting responsibility?

It's a kind of narcissistic wound to accept that we make bad decisions.

To learn to let go such regret is a big achievement for our further life.

Re: Tortured by regrets? A new study details how best to overcome them

#30

Post by layer8 »

dilap wrote: post #4

A related mental trick I use to move on from some mistake I'm stuck on is to think the following: In the future, I will make another mistake, and I will be regretting that instead of this. So I should focus on the present and the future, and try to identify and avoid that mistake (pick a different future!), rather than obsessing over the past. It's incredibly obvious, of course, but going through the exercise of thin…

The biological purpose of regretting past actions is to avoid them in the future, though.
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