THE DEEP STRUCTURE OF REGRET
Reading and rereading thousands of regrets is daunting; categorizing and recategorizing them even more so. But as I plowed back through the entries, I began identifying certain words and phrases that kept appearing with no noticeable correlation to the respondent’s age, location, gender, or the topic that person was describing.
“Diligent” . . . “More stable” . . . “Bad habits”
“Take a chance” . . . “Assert myself” . . . “Explore”
“Wrong” . . . “Not right” . . . “Knew I shouldn’t”
“Missed” . . . “More time” . . . “Love”
Words and phrases like these offer clues to the deep structure. And as they piled up, like thousands of dots of color in a pointillist painting, they began to take shape. The shapes span the lives of all of us and infiltrate every aspect of how we think, feel, and live. They divide into four categories of human regret.
Foundation regrets. The first deep structure category cuts across nearly all the surface categories. Many of our education, finance, and health regrets are actually different outward expressions of the same core regret: our failure to be responsible, conscientious, or prudent. Our lives require some basic level of stability. Without a measure of physical well-being and material security, other goals become difficult to imagine and even harder to pursue. Yet sometimes our individual choices undermine this long-term need. We shirk in school and leave before we should. We overspend and undersave. We adopt unhealthy habits. When such decisions eventually cause the platform of our lives to wobble, and our futures to not live up to our hopes, regret follows.
Boldness regrets. A stable platform for our lives is necessary, but not sufficient. One of the most robust findings, in the academic research and my own, is that over time we are much more likely to regret the chances we didn’t take than the chances we did. Again, the surface domain—whether the risk involved our education, our work, or our love lives—doesn’t matter much. What haunts us is the inaction itself. Forgone opportunities to leave our hometown or launch a business or chase a true love or see the world all linger in the same way.
Moral regrets. Most of us want to be good people. Yet we often face choices that tempt us to take the low road. When we travel that path, we don’t always feel bad immediately. （Rationalization is such a powerful mental weapon it should require a background check.） But over time, these morally dubious decisions can gnaw at us. And, once again, the realm in which they occur—deceiving a spouse, cheating on a test, swindling a business partner—is less significant than the act itself. When we behave poorly, or compromise our belief in our own goodness, regret can build and then persist.
Connection regrets. Our actions give our lives direction. But other people give those lives purpose. A massive number of human regrets stem from our failure to recognize and honor this principle. Fractured or unrealized relationships with spouses, partners, parents, children, siblings, friends, classmates, and colleagues constitute the largest deep structure category of regret. Connection regrets arise any time we neglect the people who help establish our own sense of wholeness. When those relationships fray or disappear or never develop, we feel an abiding loss.
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The next four chapters will explore each of these deep structure regrets. You’ll hear people around the world describing foundation, boldness, moral, and connection regrets. But as the chorus of voices builds, if you listen carefully, you’ll also hear something else: the vivid harmony of what we need to lead a fulfilling life.
“I regret not standing up to the men who raped me. Now that I am stronger both mentally and physically I will never let a man hurt me like that again.”
Female, 19, Texas
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“In 1964, I was invited to join Mississippi Freedom Summer by a college classmate. I took a job with my father’s boss in Oklahoma City instead.”
Male, 76, California
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“Following a career path for money instead of for my passion or work I would actually enjoy. My mother convinced me I would starve to death if I pursued a career in art, so now I am stuck behind a desk tangled in management red tape and the life is draining out of me.”
Female, 45, Minnesota
7.
Foundation Regrets
A few days after he graduated from high school in 1996, Jason Drent landed a full-time job as a sales associate at Best Buy, the large electronics retailer. Jason’s work ethic was ferocious, and his industriousness soon paid off. He quickly became the youngest sales manager in Best Buy history. A few years later, another retailer snatched him away, and Jason scaled the ranks of that company. District manager. Regional manager. Before long, he was earning a six-figure salary and shouldering executive responsibility. He began a series of career-enhancing moves from Ohio to Illinois to Massachusetts to Michigan to Tennessee. Today, at age forty-three, he heads employee relations at the corporate headquarters of a large apparel chain.