Regret and remorse

In the last line of his fine memoir, “Off to the Side,” the late writer Jim Harrison offers an interesting perspective on living: “My life could have been otherwise, but it wasn’t”

These words resonate with me as I look back on my own life, thinking about how I have lived. As with many people I am vulnerable to deep spasms of regret and remorse, often fantasizing that if I had the opportunity to make some decisions again, I would choose differently.

Although regret and remorse about past decisions still bother me, they now are usually more a dull ache in my psyche than excruciating pain. I have come to realize that it is impossible to change the past and that dwelling on it damages the present, that thinking too much about the past, especially with regret, is a path to frustration, sadness, or even madness. Moreover, I understand that memories, good and bad, are largely mirages, that they are stories that we make that distort reality like a fun-house mirror.

When I succumb to the tendency to think too much about my past mistakes, I can recover by realizing three important things. First, I like myself, and if I had not made those decisions I now regret, had taken those actions about which I feel remorse, I wouldn’t be the person I am. Second, it is not obvious that the mistakes of my past are really mistakes. And third, if they were mistakes there is a great possibility that they saved me from worse mistakes.

Finally, as Harrison’s words imply, the past is done. It is fixed and unchangeable. I feel pride and satisfaction about some aspects of my past, remorse and regret about others, particularly one event. Rather than fixate on the past, I keep in mind that I have the present at hand, my life now to be lived as well as I am able. My life could have been otherwise, but it wasn’t. So what?