“A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.”
–John Barrymore (1932-2004), American actor
To grow old and regret things we did or maybe things we should have done comes with the territory. Age and reflection go hand-in-hand. When we are young, our dreams are vital daily companions that feed our existence while helping us map our intended direction. However, at some point in old age, we consider that those dreams either have been realized or not … and perhaps we accept they are lost forever.
To such a realist, regret does “take the place” of dreams. In his old age, this man can continue to pursue dreams that seem likely to be unattainable, or he can accept his inability to right any past mistakes. To live with his regrets, a healthy man can ultimately become stoic and seek to put an end to his remorse; however, many lack the ability to extinguish these heartaches, and they continue to haunt him forever.
from “The Princess: Tears, Idle Tears”
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
Dealing with the despair of regret is so difficult. Older people often suffer greatly.
Erik Erikson was an ego psychologist who developed one of the most popular and influential theories of development. “Integrity Versus Despair” is the eighth and final stage of Erik Erikson’s Stage Theory of Psychosocial Development. This stage begins at approximately age 65 and ends at death. At the integrity versus despair stage, the key conflict centers on questioning whether or not the individual has led a meaningful, satisfying life.
According to Erikson's theory, individuals don't experience integrity or despair all the time. Instead, most healthy individuals experience a balance between each as they begin to make sense of their lives.
At Stage 8: “Integrity vs. Despair,” people look back on the events of their lives and determine if they are happy with the life that they lived or if they regret the things they did or didn't do. The adult feels a sense of fulfillment about life and accepts death as an unavoidable reality has a positive outcome, but individuals who are unable to obtain a feeling of fulfillment and completeness will despair and fear death.
The “Right Regrets”
“Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.”
– Arthur Miller (1915-2005), American playwright and essayist
Life is exhausting and continually confusing. It is no wonder we make mistakes and have regrets. We constantly question our decisions, our options, and even our beliefs. However, it's important to learn and grow from our mistakes – those become “the right regrets” – the ones we can learn from and then move on.
What Older People Regret
Dr. Karl Pillemer, the founder and director of the Cornell Institute for Translational Research on Aging, a center that works to increase public awareness of aging research, found that Americans over 65 almost all shared one regret that they turned into advice. They said, “I would have spent less time worrying" and "I regret that I worried so much about everything."
Karl Pillemer. 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans. October 30, 2012.
Older people surveyed in the UK had three pieces of regret laden advice that different slightly from their state cohorts. They wished they’d traveled more, had not lost touch with friends, and had not wasted time interacting and caring about the wrong people and what they thought.
There is one trend, however, that pervades all the studies of older people, and even dying people’s, regrets. The trend, isolated and explained here, is that “inaction regrets lasted longer than action regrets, and that greater loss severity corresponded to more inaction regrets. Regrets more often focused on non-fixable than fixable situations.”
Meaning, people most regret the things they DO NOT do; the risks not taken. Research shows that more people regret things they didn't do than the things they did, even if things they did turned out badly.
Researchers focused on three things:
Our actual selves: The traits and abilities we think we possess; basically, who we think we are.
Our ought selves: The traits and abilities we think we should possess; basically, who we think we should be (think responsibilities and obligations).
Our ideal selves: The traits, abilities, and accomplishments we would like to possess; basically, our goals and hopes and dreams.
And, the research shows most people (72 percent) feel regret related to their ideal self as opposed to their ought self (28 percent). In fact, when asked to name their single biggest life regret, 76 percent of participants cite an action not taken that would have helped them realize their ideal self.
Davidai, S., & Gilovich, T. (2018). The ideal road not taken: The self-discrepancies involved in people’s most enduring regrets. Emotion, 18(3), 439–452.
In short, we most regret thinking we didn't reach our full potential. We most regret not becoming the person we feel we could have become...if we only had tried.
"When we evaluate our lives, we think about whether we're heading toward our ideal selves, becoming the person we'd like to be. Those are the regrets that are going to stick with you, because they are what you look at through the windshield of life.”
– S. Davidai & T. Gilovich
What To Do About Regrets
Carsten Wrosch, a psychologist at Concordia University in Montreal, has studied how people's regrets change over their lifetimes. He says the new findings "converge quite substantially" with what he has found in his own research. "We argue in our work that regret can be a double-edged sword: it teaches us how to change, but it can also lead to depression," he says.
In younger adults, high levels of internal-control attributions might facilitate active change of regrettable behavior, resulting in low intensities of regret.
Wrosch, C., & Heckhausen, J. (2002). Peceived control of life regrets: Good for young and bad for old adults. Psychology and Aging, 17.
However, Wrosch says, "Older adults need to adjust how they cope with regret – if they react to regret like young adults, they are more likely to be depressed."
Wrosch, C., Bauer, I.,
& Scheier, M. F. (2005). Regret and quality of life across the
adult life span: The influence of disengagement and available future
goals. Psychology and Aging, 20(4),
657–670.
Wrosch says, "If
someone in their 70s regrets that they never had the education or job
they wanted, there no going back to change life circumstances. But if
a similar regret happens to someone in their early 20s, they can use
that information to turn their life around."
As second chances decrease as we get older, the benefits of mulling over what might have been also decline with age. Older adults should generally learn not to waste time wallowing in remorse about past circumstances they cannot change. Treating missed opportunities and genuine losses as equally regretful events can lead to unhappiness and emotional instability in old age.
When I find myself in
times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of
wisdom, let it be
And in my hour of darkness she is standing right
in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
Let it be, let it be,
let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be
From “Let It Be” by the Beatles
The mindless and ruminative worry over things we can’t control so effectively poisons life that it’s a waste of a precious lifetime.
Dr. Pillemer speaks about the notion of being responsible for one’s own happiness.
“What the oldest Americans know is that in your dreams you are going to drop dead,” said Pillemer. The elderly, he added, understand that modern medical technology means people with unhealthy lifestyles are “sentencing themselves to 20 or 30 or 40 years of chronic illness.”
And, by the way, this is just a personal note, but I believe we all have difficulty living up to being our vision of “our ideal selves.” That damn dirty “windshield of life” offers a view filled with regrets we may never forget. What about those that nag and nag us even though we learned great lessons from them?
Of course, we must make amends if we need to. And it is necessary to forgive ourselves for our wrongdoings. But, I have found a regret can stilll persist and persist so strongly that it negatively affects the rest of our lives. That gnawing regret can effectively cripple us, preventing us from being a benefit to others.
I believe the only solution to a regret that takes us to the edge of depression is … excuse the language, but a nasty expletive is needed for full force … to say “fuck it.”
Doing the “fuck it” (as I call it), involves both confessing the terrible commission of a sin and acknowledging nothing can change the outcome. To me, a person must repent, then let go and realize he is not God, not a perfect being, but rather a highly fallible human. The difficult part of believing this process is personally owning the damage … all of it, not just some. The hopeful part is an honest commitment to never doing the deed again.
My sincere apologies to ministers and pastors who define repentance and salvation in much more holy terms. I understand how they probably look at my irreverent translation and shake their heads at my heathenish approach. I am sorry. My sincere regrets. (No pun intended here.)
"Enjoy Yourself (It's Later Than You Think)" is song published in 1949, with music written by Carl Sigman and lyrics by Herb Magidson. A popular version of the song, recorded by Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians, was made on November 27. 1949. It capitalizes on common conversational phrases to emphasize its pointed yet pertinent theme. In simple words, I think the old tune applies to this 2021 discussion of regret and aging.
Enjoy Yourself (It's Later Than You Think)
By Guy Lombardo
You work and work for years and years, you're always on the go
You never take a minute off, too busy makin' dough
Someday, you say, you'll have your fun, when you're a millionaire
Imagine all the fun you'll have in your old rockin' chair
Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think
Enjoy yourself, while you're still in the pink
The years go by, as quickly as a wink
Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think
You're gonna take that ocean trip, no matter, come what may
You've got your reservations made, but you just can't get away
Next year for sure, you'll see the world, you'll really get around
But how far can you travel when you're six feet underground?
Your heart of hearts, your dream of dreams, your ravishing brunette
She's left you and she's now become somebody else's pet
Lay down that gun, don't try, my friend, to reach the great beyond
You'll have more fun by reaching for a redhead or a blonde
Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think
Enjoy yourself, while you're still in the pink
The years go by, as quickly as a wink
Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think
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