TED Conversations

Hilal Halil

Student high schooler,

This conversation is closed. Start a new conversation
or join one »

What is regret? Is it a feeling that is felt when we do something wrong, or when we don't do something true? Both of them or none of them?

Sometimes we turn back, and take a look at what we did, and sometimes what we didn't do. Then regret lays over us. It's like guilt, but actually it isn't. It isn't like remorse, too. Maybe the desire to impossible, the desire to missed stuff. What do you think about it?

Topics: Emotions HUMAN consideration emotion emotional well being feelings life psychology regret
+1
Share:
progress indicator
  • thumb

    V Alexander

    • +1
    Jul 20 2012: I believe we're also capable of non-personal profound regret, a heightened sense of sad loss at what could historically have been or at what should never have been. The latter is how I feel about organized religion existing past its usefulness; mass burial sites and post-tribal war; raping the Earth; human subjugation; and so on.

    And so on. :)

  • Greg McEachern

    • +2
    Jul 15 2012: The bottom line is that we shouldn't hurt anyone. We shouldn't hurt ourselves or anyone else. That is a 'game'. Guilt and regret are meant to teach us. If we don't let go of guilt or regret we are hurting ourselves over and over again and that is sick. When we do this we are possibly getting some kind of reward. Answering the question of 'what is the reward' is the hard part because it is elusive. This all relates to forgiveness. The healthy reward when we forgive is we are not locked into a perpetual victim role. We break free and begin to love and accept. We become wise parents to ourselves and the the hurt child ego state dissolves and the happy child ego state re-emerges. Health. Maturity.

  • Dan Geurin 10+

    • 0
    Jul 15 2012: For me, regret is the knowledge and realization that I can't undo an action (or lack of action) that caused pain or harm to someone (myself included) in some way.
  • thumb

    Daphnee Kwong Waye

    • 0
    Jun 23 2012: Most of the time when I feel regretful, I regret something that I could have done but that I didn't do.
  • thumb

    Heather White 10+

    • 0
    Jun 22 2012: Both - followed closely by guilt, remorse and shame - we are social creatures after all and we need to conform to family or societies moral expectations...
Showing all 5 comments