Regrets?
There are many levels of regretfulness. There’s the kind of silly fantasies like why didn’t I buy Apple at 18 or Amazon at 10. Or why didn’t I call someone in time to prevent 9/11. Probably wouldn’t have happened. One take on this is an Atlantic article, Regret Is the Price of Free Will. What I’d like to mention is the regret for something I could have done with ease, but I didn’t think of it till many years later.
From the Atlantic:
It’s also well-known that people tend to say they regret things they didn’t do more than things they did. Interestingly, though, this depends on when you ask them. In 1995, Thomas Gilovich and Victoria Medvec reviewed existing evidence on regret and theorized that people tend to regret their actions right after they happen—“I can’t believe I ate the whole thing”—but the more time passes, the less it bothers them.
We were on our wonderful trip to Viet Nam, a decade ago. Our guide was a young man who was extremely intelligent and compassionate. We were on a bus on a country road when the bus made a surprise stop. No tourist features anywhere around. The bus door opened and a young girl boarded. She was lovely and radiated peace and sweetness. As we started off the guide told us her story. She was crippled in one leg. We could see this as she boarded. Because of this she was more or less a pariah in her village and pretty much had to fend for herself. She had been limping along toward her village which was quite far off, and we had stopped to give her a lift. Just observing her demeanor she didn’t seem angry or burdened. She was smiling and I guess just happy for the lift. Her face and fate haunt me.
What I should have done is walked down the aisle of the bus and had everyone throw in a few bucks as a gift for her. Even if no-one else contributed I should have given her at least $100 which given the currency disparity might have made a huge difference in her life. I didn’t think of it till many years later. Such a small gift from we fortunate folks could have been magnified almost beyond measure.
Now no one, no matter how generous, can right all the wrongs of the world. But the concept of random acts of kindness is an important one. And it can improve the lives of both giver and receiver. I hope that a few of these can balance an equal number of regrets, though the “score” will never be known.
Do any such regrets come to mind for you? Or as the article states, have they disappeared into the memory hole, never to be remembered? Have you done a particularly interesting “random act of kindness”? I realize that even mentioning such might mitigate the value, but still we like stories here so it’s OK.