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

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

#31
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…

My issue is i regret rather non-issues. Which makes it difficult to avoid because A. they're often small, stupid things that are difficult to avoid imo. And B. i'm sure i'd just find something else. The small things are objectively not reasons to be obsessing and regretting.. yet i do. So i think it's a problem in my frame of mind, not the action in focus.

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

#32

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?

money leading to drugs, riskier behavior, suicide, etc.

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

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Exploiting for profit -- That sounds exactly like what some religious structures are doing. Perhaps "fun" for them, but bad for the ones exploited.

I am an atheist but it's preposterous to dismiss the fact that a vast number of people find healing in organized or individualized religion. Or to suggest that the sole purpose of religion is exploitation for profit.

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

#34
My whole life is regret and I found the article very insightful. I heard a religious quote that I wish I could remember: it's better to earn gold along the way by investing in relationships than to bet it all on a gold mine.

As a hacker trying to win the internet lottery since.. 1992-ish, I put all of my eggs in one basket most of the time, and I've been part of at least a dozen ventures that all failed. It's like flipping a coin and getting tails 30 times in a row, which feels like 1 in a billion odds of losing to this extent. My best years were invested in techs like C++ that nobody even uses anymore, and I wouldn't use because they don't provide enough leverage. I only have the smallest bandwidth now to get anything at all done, and 90% of that is a waste of time due to conceptual flaws in languages, frameworks, operating systems, hardware, etc. In a very real sense, my most impactful choices were in the beginning, but I chose poorly or lost, so now it's too expensive to get back the sunk cost that I've invested. Making it ever-harder to keep going. Sometimes it feels like regret is all I have.

Unfortunately the winners usually don't have this experience. They don't have the gumption to lose for a lifetime. So they don't go through the same healing and growth process. Vanishingly few wealthy people can step back and use their money for social wellness altruistically.

Meanwhile some of us stumble onto concepts like duality and see through the matrix. We grok that there's no way to opt out of reincarnation. Then we look around and wonder why everyone is acting so strangely, having strong attachments to materialism in the 3D. The more we have, the more we cling to our ego and accomplishments, eventually living in fear of losing it all. While the people with nothing are more likely to lose their risk aversion and live in service to others.

Which means that the wealthy and powerful often live in a fear-based reality, while the poor often live in a love-based reality. Which works out well for the rich, while the poor suffer under systems of control they have little say in.

Zen Buddhism and Taoism touch on the idea that life is suffering, and suffering comes from attachments. So something that helps me is to go into situations knowing that I'll likely fail, but trying anyway, without expectation of outcome or regret.

So that one day if/when the win comes, I don't waste it like so many others. And maybe, just maybe, we can change the world.

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

#35

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?

The story of lottery winners is sometimes an unhappy one. A windfall can ruin relationships, lead to a loss of normalcy, make one a target for crime, and as you say, enable vices.

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

#36

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…

The BFL scam was where they were mining on equipment before sending it out, right? It's too bad they went that way. I bought two BFL Jalapenos with BTC I'd mined, and the hardware was pretty nice.

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

#37
Somewhat connected to the approach proposed in this article is something I've found that really helps when I've taken a hit:

Reframe the loss as a learning experience that will save you much more in the long term.

Example: You can read and listen to all the advice in the world, say, about being careful who you lend money to, but when you get stung for $100 by a "friend" that is going to register very, very much more strongly and will possibly save you $1000s in the future as your antenna will be much more effective.

It isn't something that can always be used but being able to see seemingly painful hits as cheap lessons can be quite empowering.

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

#38

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?

Living a healthy life requires discipline and a certain amount of humility. Both of those traits are hard to maintain after a financial windfall IMO.

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

#39

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.

I'd say watch it and then decide. No spoilers.

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

#40

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…

The BFL scam was where they were mining on equipment before sending it out, right? It's too bad they went that way. I bought two BFL Jalapenos with BTC I'd mined, and the hardware was pretty nice.

dusty circuit boards, broken hardware, delayed shipments, taking money and delivering nothing. The equipment would be pre-used and then delivered late, when it was much less useful due to the BTC difficulty increase.
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