Would you regret the chances you missed or the mistakes you’ve made? Unsurprisingly, many people regret the things they didn’t do, not the things they did but failed at, as they near the end of life.
In psychology, what we didn’t take the chance to do may haunt us much longer and more strongly than the mistakes we made. Those should’ve, would’ve, could’ve, are what give us sleepless nights with regretful longing. Not those bad results that make us cringe.
But here are the nuances. It is normal for us to ruminate over mistakes that we have made. Many people wake up at 3 am because of a text we shouldn’t have sent–or, should have sent. The job we shouldn’t have taken. Or, the moment we wish we had handled better. But the script flips over the times. But the greatest emotional weight usually comes from the chances we didn’t take. The conversations we avoided. The moves we were too scared to make. The opportunities we let expire.
Therefore, these metrics are important. Classic research by Gilovich and Medvec (1995) found that while immediate regrets are intense and acute, long-term regrets tend to be more persistent and are usually associated with inaction. According to this theory, our regrets generally follow this pattern:
- Short term: people regret actions (mistakes) more.
- Long term: people regret inactions (missed opportunities) more, and these regrets are more persistent.
Unrealized possibilities may leave space for endless “what ifs.” We imagine the alternate versions of ourselves we could’ve become… and those imagined paths linger.
*What is Daily Insight? An ongoing series of quick, bite-sized brain snacks. Every week, there are three research-based facts and three research-informed reflective notes.
