On Regret

One of my pet peeves is when people proudly declare that they have "no regrets."  I had a friend once who had made some poor choices.  She was suffering the natural consequences of those choices and it was painful.  And hard.  She knew it.  It was a difficult time for her as she struggled to process and adapt to the unhappy changes that those choices had brought to her life.

And yet she proudly told me that she did not regret any of her choices.  She told me that she needed to have made those choices and suffered what she was suffering to become the person she was.  I told her she was crazy.  And she was.  She would have been happier if she had made different choices.  And yet she clung stubbornly to her lack of expressed regret.

(I know it is trite to define a term and then give a discourse on it.  We've all done it for a Sacrament talk.  Probably when we had to speak in church as youth.  So with apologies...)

Regret is a feeling of sorrow or remorse for an action.  We should not allow ourselves to wallow in regret every time we make a mistake.  If we did this, we would quickly become depressed and lose all hope.  Not an "optimal outcome."

The scriptures, however, speak of a concept known as "godly sorrow."  President Ezra Taft Benson taught that godly sorrow can lead us to repentance.

President Benson elaborated: "Godly sorrow is a gift of the Spirit. It is a deep realization that our actions have offended our Father and our God. It is the sharp and keen awareness that our behavior caused the Savior, He who knew no sin, even the greatest of all, to endure agony and suffering. Our sins caused Him to bleed at every pore. This very real mental and spiritual anguish is what the scriptures refer to as having “a broken heart and a contrite spirit.” (See 3 Ne. 9:20; Moro. 6:2; D&C 20:37, 59:8; Ps. 34:18;Ps. 51:17; Isa. 57:15.) Such a spirit is the absolute prerequisite for true repentance."  ("A Mighty Change of Heart", First Presidency Message, Ensign, October 1989.)

I think what bugged me most about my friend's lack of regret was that it seemed like her attitude was preventing her from feeling godly sorrow and experiencing "this cool little thing called repentance."

I try to make decisions so that I can minimize any regrets in my life.  But I have plenty.  I regret certain choices that I have made, though I won't share them here.  These include regrets for things that I have done and things that I failed to do.  I am not a perfect person, but I'd like to think that I am trying.  And I am grateful for the gift of repentance to help me when I do make a mistake.

I haven't seen or talked to my friend for many years.  I hope she has overcome the consequences of the poor choices that she made.  I wonder if she still prides herself on having no regrets about any of her choices.  My sense is that if she truly has overcome those poor choices, it is because she has come to regret them.