What is Regret, Really?
Seneca once wrote that we should free ourselves from two burdens: the memory of past pain and the fear of future suffering. The past is already gone, and the future hasn’t yet arrived—so why let either control us?
Think about a typical day when everything seems to pile up against you—work stress, traffic, minor irritations. You finally make it home, hoping for peace, only to find a stack of dirty dishes in the sink. You had asked your partner to handle them earlier, but instead, they’re relaxing in front of the TV. Without pausing, you snap—raising your voice, listing complaints, trying to make a point.
Your partner, startled and hurt, hadn’t expected this reaction. They had planned to do the dishes later. Their day was long too, but in that moment, your frustration overshadowed everything.
Hours later, you see the damage: not just the argument, but the lingering tension. You wish you’d handled it differently. That knot in your stomach? That’s regret.
Regret isn’t about dishes, walls scribbled on by your kids, or a last-minute task from your boss—it’s about clinging to an idea of how things should have been. The Stoics believed that regret arises when we let the past occupy our present. Marcus Aurelius urged us to accept each moment in its entirety. Regret, in contrast, is the refusal to do so.
As Seneca put it, “We often suffer more in imagination than in reality.” We tell ourselves that if we’d spoken or acted differently, the outcome would have been better. Marcus Aurelius offered the remedy: our distress comes from our judgment of events—not the events themselves—and we can change that judgment instantly.
The frustration in the “dish” scenario wasn’t caused by your partner but by your expectation. The regret you felt later that night was yours to manage, not theirs to fix. Regret is a personal challenge—one we must acknowledge, understand, and work through ourselves.
0 Comments