Coping with regrets, for better or worse

CONSIDER IF YOU WILL, THE FOLLOWING SITUATIONS

A businesswoman invests heavily in a startup company believing it is sure to succeed and produce significant dividends. The startup struggles and goes belly-up, leaving her with huge losses and regrets.

A CEO achieves professional success and is a good provider, but work and travel commitments mean he is frequently unavailable at home. As his children grow and his marriage hits rough waters, he realizes he has failed to manage a good work-life balance. He regrets not spending more time with his wife and family.

An executive grows close to a female sales representative, and they slip into a secretive affair. They end it weeks later, but the damage is done, and regrets run deep.
 
No one makes the best decision — or even a good decision — every time. Everyone messes up occasionally, and some poor choices bring repercussions that might hurt awhile. In business or in personal life, bad decisions can cause financial losses, missed opportunities, hardships, pain, and strained or broken relationships. They may also involve sin, even grave sin.

Some look back on life and say, “I have no regrets.” Some advise to “let go” of regrets, leaving them in the past. But as philosopher George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Mistakes and bad choices can become valuable learning experiences. But if regret weighs on an individual in a nonconstructive way, it can become burdensome and paralyzing, an obstacle to future success.

There may be no moral gravity to a well-intended investment or business decision that turns out poorly. By assessing how the decision came about, one can extract lessons to help avoid repeating similar errors. Often, though, the lesson involves attention to practicing greater virtue — say, if the regretted choice resulted from imprudence, greed, or pride.

So: regret, or forget? Can we regret our mistakes and yet appreciate their positive takeaways? And what about poor moral choices, where we’ve sinned against God or hurt others? Can we — should we — ever “get over” our regret of serious sin?
 
CONFRONTING REGRET

In his 2022 book The Power of Regret: How Looking Back Is Moving Us Forward, author Daniel Pink takes the “no regrets” philosophy to task. He believes that leaders especially need to face up to regrets and deal with them correctly.
 
“Ignoring regret is a really bad idea for leaders, because they’re not going to learn,” Pink said in a recent AP interview. “But wallowing in it is, in some ways, an even worse idea because it hobbles them. What I would like for leaders is not to sort of proclaim ‘no regrets’ as this sign of courage, but actually to show courage by staring their own regrets in the eye and doing something about them, and having honest, authentic conversations with their team about regrets.” 
If we deal with regrets in a sensible way, “they are powerful forces for improving us,” he added.

Pink identifies four core categories of regret — foundation regrets, boldness regrets, connection regrets, and moral regrets. The last category is more subjective depending upon individual moral codes. “But for many of us, these [moral] regrets ache the most and last the longest,” he writes in his book.
 
Moral regrets also say something about the human condition, he notes: “It suggests that stamped somewhere in our DNA and buried deep in our souls is the desire to be good.”

OUT IS THROUGH

The way out of our problems and regrets is to work through them, said Fr. Robert Sirico, co-founder and president emeritus of the Acton Institute. And getting through them means honestly confronting our brokenness in order to heal, whether it’s dealing with failure, grief, loss, or addiction. We first accept the reality of where we went wrong, and then assess what harm we have caused — a “moral inventory,” as it is called in 12-step programs.

“In our moral failures, likewise, we must examine our consciences and name and confess our sins,” said Fr. Sirico.
 
Regret for sin in this sense, however, is distinct from the guilt of sin that has been forgiven. Regret of past sins “is the memory of our failure in the light of God’s mercy,” he pointed out. “I suspect that many of our contemporaries say they have ‘no regrets’ because they are unsure they have a savior who will forgive the very things they regret.”

Father Mike Schmitz, known for his popular Bible in a Year podcast and his new Catechism in a Year podcast, characterizes regret and sorrow as emotions that do not necessarily lead to repentance.
 
“It takes humility to repent,” said Fr. Schmitz. “Regret takes no humility.” Regret can help with repentance, but on its own does nothing, he added.

He offers the example of the apostles Peter, who denied Jesus, and Judas, who betrayed Him. “They both wept over their sin. But only Peter repented of his sin. Only Peter chose to let go of his sin and turn back to Jesus,” said Fr. Schmitz. “Judas, on the other hand, clung to his sorrow and pride.” Peter’s regret led him to healing; Judas’ regret led him to despair.

Regret is good for us when it spurs us to action, he indicated.
“It’s okay to regret the things we’ve done in the past that took us away from the path of God, but we can’t dwell in this regret,” he explained. “Instead, we have to do something about it. We have to repent.”
 
GOOD FROM BAD

While regret can manifest as emotion, sometimes it can be strictly intellectual. One can acknowledge bad choices without feeling them on an emotional level.

In The Name of God Is Mercy: A Conversation with Andrea Tornielli, Pope Francis speaks approvingly of a passage from a Bruce Marshall novel in which a priest hears the confession of a soldier who is about to be executed. The soldier confesses many sexual sins but does not “feel” sorry and doesn’t believe he is repentant, knowing he would likely commit those sins again if given the chance. When the priest asks, “But are you sorry that you are not sorry?” the man replies affirmatively.
 
“In other words, he apologizes for not repenting,” Pope Francis tells the interviewer. “The door was opened just a crack, allowing absolution to come in.” The soldier, without the emotion of sorrow, nevertheless admitted the sin of his acts enough to receive God’s healing mercy.

Sometimes, as in the parable of the prodigal son, it takes a lot of self-destructive behavior before a person acknowledges his errors. “Hitting rock bottom” can serve as the wake-up call that gives rise to regret and repentance.
 
Some have said they are “glad” to have descended into sin since it inspired their return to wholeness and faith. The Exsultet at the Easter Vigil liturgy proclaims the sin of Adam as a “happy fault, that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!” That prayer, however, is not meant to express joy over Adam’s sin, but rather to marvel at God’s infinite love and mercy in revealing Himself to man through Christ. As St. Paul writes, “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Rom 5:20). God’s mercy is so immense that no sinner, no matter how great the sin, is beyond redemption provided he truly repents.

DARKNESS FOR LIGHT

When one is “haunted by regrets,” writes Sr. Kathryn J. Hermes in Reclaim Regret, he may descend into feelings of worthlessness and self-hate. Rather than confront his secret regrets, he puts up facades to protect himself.
 
“If my secret is that I regret having missed opportunities for advancement, I might cover my anger with a passive meekness,” writes Sr. Hermes. “But beneath my humble words, a raging inner victim resents that others have what I don’t.”
 
In a moral regret, such as an extramarital affair, the individual might deny wrongdoing or having hurt another person. “I blame someone else,” she said.
 
“But once I have the courage of truth, I stop denying that what I did was truly wrong. I accept my part in the situation, and admit my fault,” writes Sr. Hermes. “I accept that something needs to be confessed.”

A key, she suggests, in the midst of regret is to hear the voice of Jesus saying, I have made you for more than this. Then, “when you access your story in the light of God’s mercy, you can courageously look at the pieces of your life, accept them as your own, and let go of the darkness of regret in exchange for the light of Christ.”

GERALD KORSON is editor of Legatus magazine.