Regrets, do they exists for things you do?

[Bobipine]

Greetings, you probably have no idea of who I'm supposed to be, but that's fine, the opposite is probably also true. Turns out I'm still a bit in my semi philosophical state, so since I see a lot of threads that actually have thoughtful subjects, why not try my luck.

Now, I believe most, if not all, of you know the word regret and it's meaning. What I'm asking right now, do you think that you can actually regret something? At first you are probably saying yes you can. So I'll have to elaborate a bit. Now, if you regret something, I believe it's because the matter related to the action was something important to you, something that would easily bother you for a while and require your attention. So you go and pose the act, be it do something or ask something, you get things done. Now, if it results a bad experience you will probably "regret" doing it and would have preferred never doing it. Now let's say you never did what you regretted, you don't know the result, so it still bother you, and you might miss the opportunity for the knowledge of the result and regretting not trying anything. So that way, either thing you do, if not subtle enough, you regret the situation. For example (both stories are actually more complicated then they might seem and are just "quick" examples), there was that girl I've been after for a while, and always thought that if I don't let her know I'll have this on the conscience for a long time and regret never knowing if I ever died or something, so I ended up more or less letting her know, before she went with my cousin, therefore ruining any chance I might have or not. In this situation I don't regret anything. Other situation, another girl, a lot of interest, she recently broke up with her boyfriend, which happens to be a close friend too, loyalty is in question, a lot of misunderstanding, and now I have to keep going without an exact answer to my question so I kind of regret not clarifying things and nothing good would happen of doing that now. So now I'd regret things I didn't do, instead of stuff I did that might have went wrong. Both of these example might seem to bias the question, but it's simply because they are both related to a touchy subject for me.

So, do you think you can regret things you actually conscientiously did? if not, well you can leave an example if you wish so. It's probably an easy question and I'm the only one who complicate stuff so much. Thank you for your time.

 

[RooftopAssassin]

I can say that I personally regret things I didn't do and things I did do. It's really simple for me, but at the same time, it's complicated. The best reasoning for this is my active imagination wherein I reenact every event of my life, and question the decisions I made or did not make. You'd think since I think about it so much I would have moved on, but alas, I cannot.

To put it shortly: I can regret anything, be it good or bad, huge or minuscule, or whether it be from a decision or a non-decision. I'm sure most of this applies to everyone else, but hey we aren't all clones, are we?

 

[Lust]

So, do you think you can regret things you actually conscientiously did?

Oh yeah. Many times I've messed up certain relationships, intimate or not, because of how I dealt with them.

Also, I kinda regretted selling my PSP.

 

[Erana]

I live without regret. Mostly because I shelter myself and am afraid to do or say risky things, but I've also found that I'm really good at blocking out all memory of something that makes me feel regret. I can go find them in my thoughts if I think hard enough, but I don't for obvious reasons.
This being able to completely forget things makes me worry a bit, but it makes things easier for me in general.
I just wonder sometimes how much I have to regret... >.>

 

[Highlander16]

Just yesterday I spent 6 hours playing mass effect 2 when I really really should have been writing essays

 

[sylekage]

I regret almost everything that I try, and turns out bad. Mostly because I beat myself up over it until it goes away. I don't know why, it just happens. Mostly I go into these bad situations, and I know what the outcome will be, but I just want to know if I'm right or not. Then I regret it and feel dumb.

 

[Bobipine]

Thanks for the replies, didn't quite expected any.
As I suspected, we seem to be able to regret things we actually done, and it make a lot of sense, how else would be able to learn from our mistakes if we never regretted any action to some degree. I guess what was making me wonder is that, pretty much been brought up by sylekage, you sometime know the outcome, but still want to make sure if your right or not, in those case anything you do might end up regretting, even nothing if the subject is a personal one.

 

[DefunctTheory]

I regret many things, including reading your first post in its entirety .

A note I must make... turning a one sentence question into a block of text without paragraphs is not philosophical, its bullshit writing, something I pioneered in middle school English class (Without the block of text lacking proper paragraph structure).