Fear of Regret

fear does cripple me, but it's fear of failure rather than regret. though they're not entirely disconnected.

Fear needs to stay on its leash if you're ever going to live well in this world. It only has a few legitimate uses and those need to be well defined in your mind. There are very few failures that have any finality to them. Sometimes even death is worth risking if the situation requires it. Regret should hardly register on the fear-o-meter.

My worst regrets are the things I did that hurt people that I never atoned or apologized for. Thank god there aren't many of those. The few I have hurt badly enough.

"Yes it is, and weirdly I still make decisions out of cowardice and laziness" - this every day till the end.

I never fear regret. I don't even fear failure. I fear not doing. I fear procrastination.

You just haven't met the right failure yet.

I never fear regret. I don't even fear failure. I fear not doing. I fear procrastination.

I don't understand the difference between these and regret. I mean, thinking 'I wish I had done' and 'I wish I had not procrastinated' is regret, isn't it? Unless you mean that you fear the experience of procrastinating as it occurs.

I suppose. I guess for me I prob don't dwell on the regret too much - I feel like not doing something or not bothering leaves a more internalised or a general bad feeling rather than a list of specific opportunities missed.

I don't want to sound like I'm saying I'm invulnerable, far from it - I just can't quite relate to the exact framing of this thread.

You just haven't met the right failure yet.

What kind of failure do you mean? Not questioning your thesis, just curious. I feel I've failed stupendously in many things.

I find regret unavoidable but this makes it easier to accept and manage. Biggest fear is not having enough control or freedom in any given situation.

Well, son, the funny thing about regret is, it's better to regret something you have done than to regret something you haven't done. And by the way, when you see your mother this weekend, tell her...
SATAN! SATAN! SATAN! SATAN! SATAN!

haha i was literally about to post that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5aWfkm-h6A

i think my big fear is dying - being diagnosed with something terminal

good friday thread

some of us have to work weekend nights at the slaughterhouse

good masturbation euphemism

my only regret is holding back on some zings, thread has inspired me to go full on from now on

What kind of failure do you mean?

Some kinds of failure seem pretty traumatic to me (busted relationships, being frozen out of jobs). Not sure I've got the capacity to go through them again.

i guess having chronic illness for a long time, i'm less worried about failures that are my fault. at least i can blame someone for those or there's some sense of justice or control. my fault, my problem.

I think I'm the opposite. Horrible things I can't control seem easier to deal with than horrible things I know I could have prevented.

i guess there's that phrase about give me the patience not to worry about things i can't control - which makes sense if it's like agonising over the actions or feelings of another, but is probably more difficult in the case of an illness, whereby everything you do is filtered through a body that doesn't work properly. a thing you should be able to control is not yours to control. there's still a zen place to get to where you ignore this too - but it's a weird place.

not playing my tragic violin here - just spitballing.

9 hours and no Fear of Raggett parody thread, disappointed in you ilx

I considered it an hour ago fwiw

to continue my theme of posting obvious things, do you regret not staring it?

xp, LG, i think you're right that an illness would be different. actually, when i think about it, the pain of mourning and loss -- which i think is similar to an illness, as in something is taken from you and you can't get it back -- is more acute than regret. it's a very different kind of pain though... more disorienting, an "irruption of the Real" that throws your whole lifeworld into crisis. regret is sort of the opposite: instead of coming on like an intrusion, it locks you even deeper in your own solipsism.

very much otm - i have been lucky enough not to have had a bereavement of someone v close, but i imagine it must be a bit like this

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I never think about regret, seems counter-intuitive. It's a sort of Fantasy-based approach to life. I'm alive now and that is all that matters. If you take a situation that happened and ask "What if....?" then you are basically writing fan-fiction about your life and it will be as useful as fortune telling, possibly even less-so. There is no way to tell what the future will bring and who knows if that situation that you regret is actually something that saved your life, only you don't know it, and you never will. I prefer to keep my fantasy in books and movies and videogames and let real life play out according to the laws of time and space.

i regret so much

Occasionally it crosses my mind that there's a good chance that the most shameful, awful, embarrassing thing I'll ever do still hasn't happened yet. So however secure I feel now having gotten over humiliating things from the past, I really shouldn't since there are possibly worse humiliations coming. Not that this is a major fear. It's more something I occasionally wonder why I'm not more afraid about.

If you take a situation that happened and ask "What if....?" then you are basically writing fan-fiction about your life and it will be as useful as fortune telling, possibly even less-so.

Maybe, but it's all part of being a sensitive human being: the sleepless nights agonising if you made the right decision, the shudders of mental and emotional pain from events 20 years ago, the lightheaded and butterflies in the stomach over fears of an uncertain future and the possibility of it all going wrong ...

i’ve had a few (too many)

don’t feel regret strongly day to day, but— bob otm— it strikes awful deep sometimes, e.g. in form of unspeakable night anxiety

tends to be entwined with unbearable responsibility of facing life now

also entwined with possibilities chosen, for which i have to be grateful. e.g. feel some regret over abandoning certain life path, but regret even more not abandoning it sooner: have to remind myself not to get stuck straddling regrets, remember to feel gratitude

there’s also sometimes some bittersweet don’t know if one can call it “pleasure” to regret (or awareness of regrets) which in its own way informs my life, moods, love & compassion for others, experience of art, etc

i do fear it; i'm certain to be stalked by it in the future; but i fear & stave off depression more (which feeds on regret not in bittersweet but deadly poison way)

regrets are delicious

i'm a regret gourmand

There's definitely an aesthetics of regret, closely aligned to nostalgia ...for example the Japanese mono no aware

Appreciating and enjoying a wistful sadness...

mono no aware
^^^

btw regret i didn't go with "regret gourmet"

there’s an ilx thread for “posts you had second thought about and decided not to post” but there isn’t one for l’esprit de l'escalier

i regret a zillion things but it's nowhere near my biggest fear. i mean, black widows in the toilet alone.

^yes.

i do think "fear of regret" may translate (in classical philosophical sense) to: can you die well.

i can't & don't presently foresee way to deal "well" with my own mortality. what we're all picturing is like death of ivan ilyich.

I think you won't be aware of your own death until it's too late. I'm far more worried about people I love dying.

For me it's a combination of the first and third choices, though it's completely lethargy and laziness, not cowardice, preventing me from fulfilling my yolo/bucket list items. My boundless reservoir of adrenaline is kept in check by tiredness and chronic fatigue.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e2qtl22OkA