Paths to Happiness by Edward Hoffman

Author:Edward Hoffman [Hoffman, Edward]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chronicle Books LLC
Published: 2016-02-28T16:00:00+00:00

Name three songs that put you in a nostalgic mood. For each one, what’s your strongest memory? Describe the circumstances and people who were with you. How can you build on these memories for greater happiness in your life?

Do you have any regrets in life? Seemingly, everyone does—and it’s probably been this way since recorded history. The ancient Israelites regretted having fled Egypt as slaves and blamed Moses for their desert malaise. The American revolutionary spy Nathan Hale famously regretted “having but one life to give” for his new nation. And the most acclaimed business leader of our time, Steve Jobs, regretted in a final interview that he had not been closer to his four children.

Surprisingly, this topic has only recently begun to receive scientific attention. A century ago, Sigmund Freud uncovered plenty of guilt in his middle-class Viennese patients—and linked it to suppressed sexual thoughts. Today, psychologists view regret as a different, broader phenomenon. Certainly, we can have regrets without feeling guilty about our thoughts or actions. Psychological research is now converging on the notion that what we regret, how often we do so, and with what intensity all make a difference. These findings make intuitive sense if regret is as universal as it seems—for not everyone is fixated on past mistakes or missed opportunities in life, while some people can’t ever seem to let go.

What has positive psychology discovered with regard to regret? Let’s take a quick look.

First, there’s a big distinction between our regrets over actions versus our regrets over inactions. Regrets over actions seem to elicit mainly “hot” emotions such as anger (“How could I have been so stupid as to buy that car!”). Regrets over inactions typically elicit feelings of wistfulness (“What if I had moved to London with Kathy that summer instead of staying in Cleveland?”) or despair (“Why didn’t I go to law school when I had the chance? I’ve wasted my life selling life insurance.”). Research shows, too, that people experience more regret in the short term over their actions, but, as they age, this attitude reverses.

In other words, you’re likely to find lots of folks in their twenties or thirties whose chief regrets are about foolish things they’ve done. In contrast, those in midlife and beyond are likelier to voice regrets on what they didn’t do—and those regrets may be more painful to bear.

What’s absolutely clear is that severe regret is bad for our mental and even physical health. Research led by Dr. Isabelle Bauer at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto found that people who compared themselves to successful friends and neighbors had more frequent colds than those who compared themselves to those whom they considered worse off. A study by Dr. Carsten Wrosch at Concordia University in Montreal linked severe regrets among the elderly to increased sleep difficulties, cortisol imbalance, and diminished feelings of happiness.

Can we learn to minimize our regrets and thereby improve our emotional well-being? It definitely seems so. Experimental research suggests that keeping a journal—especially to write about a painful personal experience—helps us to process the event and let it go.

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