«Every day I passed by the porter’s office where Horacio worked and I accepted immediately when he invited me to a coffee. Three months later we were already married, almost without knowing each other. At that time I thought that, if I didn’t do it, I would remain a «spinster.»
I got married out of prejudice and stubbornness, and today I say it bluntly: that’s the little thing I regret in life.» This is what he confessed. Pepita Bernat, almost 107 years old —very well known in Barcelona— in an interview with Longevity. A not easy confidence, like so many that many senior people they do, when reviewing their life balance.
There is an inescapable truth: the more years of life lived, the more possible regrets. «As the years go by, many people begin to look at their lives from a different perspective; starting at age 60, a process of vital review occurs, relationships, decisions and conflicts that have marked our personal history are rethought,» explains the doctor in Psychology Esther Verdaguer.
“In adulthood it is common to review life and wonder what would have happened if we had chosen another job, another relationship or had dedicated more time to certain people,” adds psychiatrist Fernando Mora, head of the Psychiatry Section at the Infanta Leonor University Hospital, and author of the book Make your brain make good decisions (Zenith).
If Pepita Bernat regrets an intimate decision spurred by the prejudices of her time, Juan, at 79 years old, from a town in Valencia, embodies a more contemporary conflict: the imbalance between work success and domestic affection. “I dedicated myself too much to my work and little to my family,” he admits. “At the time, with my wife, we decided to work hard to save and get wealth. I was little with my daughters. Luckily, before my partner passed away, the last few years I took vacations with my friends and did some trips, and we had a great time. Sometimes I regret not having dedicated a little more time to my family, but I had deeply internalized the idea of working non-stop.”
Juan’s lament is not an isolated case. According to the famous Harvard Study of Adult Development —the longest research in history on happiness, with more than 85 years of follow-up of hundreds of individuals—, the most common regret at the end of life, almost unanimously among men, is having spent too many hours in the work environment at the expense of family presence.
Many other interesting investigations have been carried out in this regard. The Legacy Project at Cornell University, which surveyed more than 1,200 octogenarians, determined that 82% of older people regret not the mistakes they made, but rather what they didn’t do: not having traveled more, not having taken more professional risks or having wasted time on unnecessary worries.
Carmen, at 59 years old, also responds to one of those common regrets. «When I was young I didn’t do many things that I now think I wish I had done. My parents gave me a very conservative upbringing, they instilled in me fear, excessive responsibility because there wasn’t enough money… It was «better stay at home», «don’t take risks». I was left wanting to have that experience that a friend proposed to me, or a trip,» she says. «I have also regretted, when I have lost someone prematurely, not having been more present in those people’s lives, having called them more, having seen them more. As Bad Bunny says, ‘I should have taken more photos, as many times as I could,'» he adds.
These types of dilemmas are not a secondary issue. In fact, regrets affect our quality of life, especially as we get older. “The amount and intensity of regrets «It is related to lower physical health and well-being,» we read in the book What do you want to be when you grow up?, by the biochemist and popularizer Pere Estupinyà, who in his work reflected some very interesting reflections on this issue.
What do older people regret most?
- Not having spent enough time with the children and missing important stages or activities.
- Not having repaired fights, not asking for forgiveness in time.
- Not having cared enough for relationships or expressed more love.
- Not having studied enough or not having followed a desired career.
- Having worked too much, not having changed jobs, not having had the courage to pursue a vocation.
- Not having been true to themselves for fear of the opinions of others.
- Not having taken care of your diet or having exercised or neglected medical check-ups.
- Not having enjoyed enough leisure plans such as traveling, investing time in a specific hobby or taking free time for oneself.
Source: ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’, Pere Estupinyà.
Recurring thoughts about poorly made decisions or regrets can seriously affect emotional health. «This is something that happens frequently. It is common that, when we make a mistake or make a bad decision, ruminative thoughts appear about it. We begin to go over and over, reviewing the mistakes made – without this changing anything – and causing feelings of guilt to appear. This increases anxiety, sadness and the feeling of having wasted opportunities,» warns Mora.
They are useful lessons for those who begin to navigate the second half of life. According to specialists, you should not give excessive mental prominence to that feeling of not having done the right thing. «Repent is blaming yourself for something from the past and it is of no use. These are thoughts that we can all harbor because we play with the imagination and the desire to have the best personal and social conditions. But this cannot obsess us, since it can generate great vital insecurity,” says Àngel Guirado, doctor in Psychology and president of the Girona delegation of the Official College of Psychology of Catalonia.
The key lies in “being able to turn regret into something useful, that is, into an emotion that helps us learn from what happened to make better decisions in the future,” according to psychiatrist Fernando Mora.
To manage possible regrets, according to this specialist and popularizer, the most important thing is to discern between what we can still modify and what can no longer be changed. «If we can do something, it is advisable to transform repentance into action, such as asking for forgiveness, resuming a relationship, changing a priority or starting a project. If we can no longer modify it, we have to work acceptance and self-compassion. As psychiatrist Viktor Frankl said in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, “when we can no longer change a situation, we have the challenge of changing ourselves,” he points out.
By way of conclusion, Mora offers one last reflection. «It is important to remember that all the decisions we make involve making sacrifices. Choosing one option means leaving others behind, and that does not necessarily mean that we are wrong, but that we have chosen our path.»
Rosanna Carceller
