I regret that we don't have any regrets anymore

If I hear one more person utter the cliche, "I don't have any regrets, for everything I've done has made me who I am today," I think I might punch myself in the face. This has got to be one of the most intellectually dishonest statements made on a regular basis.

This ill-conceived notion, the scars of experience that some seem to bear proudly, is fraught with problems. First of all, are all of these individuals really saying that right now they are somehow better off because of the mistakes they've made? Can't they see that from a theoretical standpoint, if they had lived a life of zero mistakes they'd probably be better off at the present? Haven't we all hurt someone? Or ran a little wild with money? Or been idle at a time in our life when perhaps we should have put in greater effort? The "person they are today" is frankly a jerk compared to the person who would've done the right thing.

This isn't to say that we should celebrate our failures or live in the past. Just the opposite. We should freely acknowledge our regrets to ourselves in order to learn from them and keep from repeating them. Not just acknowledge the regret, but acknowledge and accept that had we not committed the error, our lives and the lives around us would've been for the better. Because that awareness, I believe, will teach us a more profound lesson than the glib utterance of regret denial.

Consider the following exercise: project yourself into your future five, ten years. Imagine the things you want to accomplish. Imagine the things you want to avoid. Now imagine the choices you will have to make between now and then in order to not have regrets about the outcome of both. Call it "pre-regret".

You see, regret isn't about beating yourself up for your sins. And it's certainly not about making your private mistakes public for the world to scorn you. It's not about your past. It's about your future. It's about accepting that we're all human, we all are consistently imperfect and that we have the sense of conscience that allows us to ask for forgiveness, give it to others and allow it for ourselves.

Embrace Regret. Call it what it is. Learn from it. Then move beyond it. But whatever you do, don't ignore it or pretend that you don't have any. For if you do, you may be bound to re-live them. And I promise you, that would be something you'd definitely regret. So the next time someone asks you, "Do you have any regrets?" Don't be afraid to say, "I sure do, plenty." It will be a breath of fresh air in a world of stuffy denials, filled with those who think they have no room for improvement.

P.S. It should be noted that I have tons of regrets. I'm not glad for any of them. But I am glad I've learned from them. :-)