I want to start this post with a personal experience from my teenage years.
I remember it was autumn, and I was working for a local farmer during the autumn cabbage harvest. I was about 15 years old. I was the only teenager – the other workers were women and men in their prime. However, I remember one particular man, around 35 – 40 years old, who during a conversation expressed regret about the opportunity to study that he had missed in his youth. He lamented that immediately after returning from the army, he had had the opportunity to study, but he did not take advantage of it, and now he was here — in a cabbage field. Cold, wet, and poorly paid work. Cash in hand, just enough to “get by from paycheck to paycheck.” This event stuck in my memory because I remember myself at that time. Together with some of my competitors (classmates), we competed to see who would get the most failing grades in a month. The competition was fierce, and I didn’t always win, but I did earn my titles.
However, this event in the cabbage field, and similar events at that time, changed something in me. Immediately after ninth grade, my best friend, who was also my fiercest competitor for the aforementioned title, and I sat on a bench and discussed our future education — what to do, what to study, how to study. We decided that we had to study. And that’s what happened. Of course, losing titles is not pleasant, so it didn’t happen in one day, but the ice had been broken. Now I am at the age of a man who once lamented his missed opportunities. And, yes, I am grateful to him, because I never returned to the cabbage field.
Now back to the topic of the post or regret. It has only two “faces”: regret for what you did and regret for what you didn’t do. People are familiar with the first one — it’s direct, uncomfortable and often unpleasant. It may be unpleasant, but at least it is honest. It reflects actions, experiences, specific events that can be analyzed and learned from. In a way, it is a good feeling because you know why it happened.
The other feeling — regret for what you didn’t do — tends to be much more unpleasant. It doesn’t come from a mistake you made, but from nothing — from emptiness. From moments you didn’t try because you were afraid, doubtful, or waiting for a “better moment.” This regret is not based on facts, only assumptions. There is no experience, no real event to return to. There is only a question that gnaws at you for years: “What would have happened if I had acted?”
That is why regret for one’s actions is much easier to bear. Mistakes can be corrected, experience can be turned into value, and life, however complicated, still moves forward. A person who took action always knows more than someone who only thought about it. Action, even if mistaken, provides direction and clarity. Even failure can have added value, because at least you finally know how things really are, rather than living in imaginary scenarios.
Regret for not doing something is another world. It is a feeling that does not arise in a single day, but accumulates gradually. It appears when you look back and realize that at certain moments you stayed in one place. It is an unpleasant feeling that life offered you opportunities, but you did not take advantage of them because you thought that “later will be better”, “now is not the right time” or “maybe this risky step is not necessary.” These arguments may seem logical, but later they turn into fears in the form of the past.
This is not about reckless behavior or seizing every possible adventure. It is about the fact that action — any action — always produces results, while inaction keeps you stuck in place. A person who tries, makes mistakes, and learns lives a dynamic life. A person who does not try lives a life characterized by the phrase “it could have been different.” And it is precisely this phrase that haunts people for years.
Those who later (my teenage years example) talk about regret rarely talk about what they did. They talk about what they missed out on. About opportunities they didn’t take. About conversations they didn’t have. About people they didn’t hold on to or let go. About decisions that were put off for so long that making them lost its meaning. And it is precisely this feeling of emptiness — that nothing happened because you did nothing — that is much more painful than any mistake.
That’s why it’s always worth remembering one principle: it’s better to regret what you’ve done than what you haven’t even tried. Actions can be understood and analyzed. Inaction can only be regretted. And if you have to choose the only kind of regret you can bear in life, choose the one where you took action.