“I know myself well enough to know that whatever happens, it won’t be my excesses I’ll regret, it’ll be the things I held myself back from doing. In all my life I’ve never yet given a present so lavish, or made a gesture so expansive, or indulged a pleasure so recklessly that I regretted it later. Whereas there are so many things I look back on now and think: That was one of the high points, that moment will never come again, why did I hold back?”
– Jordan Mechner, The Making of Prince of Persia
__________
“I remember
10 years ago in Hollywood
We did some good
And we did some real bad stuff
But the Butt-hole Surfers said
It’s better to regret something you did
Than something you didn’t do”
– Red Hot Chili Peppers, Deep Kick
__________
The regrets of omission always feel worse.
It’s because we lost something.
An opportunity, or a connection.
Psychologists say that we experience a loss greater than a gain.
By doing something we later regret we still gain the experience itself, which can be something to learn from.
By not doing something, there is no learning except, perhaps, of our own timidity.
Easier said than done. And of course, far easier in retrospect.
We never know what we choose to do will be a regret, or one of life’s singular experiences.
The only way of knowing is to do.
Conversations With Quotations 