Choosing Celebration Instead of Regret

In Buddhism, desire is thought to be the cause of all suffering. One extremely common kind of desire is regret: the wish for that which is contrary to reality. You can regret both things that you’ve done as well as missed opportunities: I wish I hadn’t done X.   AND   I wish I had done X.

A fairly reliable way to trigger regret, especially among high achievers, is to not meet the expectations you have for yourself. “I should have done better” is a familiar refrain for many.

I once got a 98 on a high school math exam and was very excited about having done so well; it was a difficult course and test. I was celebrating (doing an internal happy dance and smiling) and shared my grade with my father so he could join my little celebration. His response was to say, very tongue-in-cheek, “You got 98 points! Why couldn’t you get 2?” Ah. Cue the sad trombone. He was right. Nevermind that he was trying to be funny; in an instant, my celebration became regret. I was celebrating what I had achieved and he pointed out what I had failed to achieve: 98 points versus 2 points. Here was how my expectation and reality played out:

EXPECTATION

• My goal will always be to earn 100 out of 100 points on an exam and I’ll do the work that takes. I expect to do well on exams.

REALITY

• I only earned 98 points…I wish I had gotten 100 points = REGRET at not having aced the test
• I missed 2 points… I wish I hadn’t missed those 2 points = REGRET at missing those questions

I felt regret from every angle. I had an A+ but wasn’t happy. I was suffering, as silly as that may sound. It sounded silly to me too, but that didn’t change how I felt.

I realized I was facing a moment of choice.

One option was to try to stop caring how well I did – to drop my expectations of myself and my performance in math class. If I didn’t care, then it wouldn’t matter to me. And if it didn’t matter to me, I didn’t have to care. I could probably learn to accept whatever grade I got with a mildly surprised, “Oh. OK.” If my performance doesn’t matter, there’s nothing to regret…you have to WISH that things were different for regret to take root. Do you regret how you washed your last spoon? Or how you squeezed toothpaste on your toothbrush this morning? Things that don’t matter aren’t fertile ground for regret. But neither are they reason for joy or celebration! This didn’t seem to be an option promising much more than studied apathy.

Another option was to continue caring and having high expectations of myself but to see that regret achieves nothing and is forever focused on the past, mourning something that simply cannot be changed. I could refuse to let missing 2 points ruin having earned 98 points. Instead of feeling regret about missing those 2 points, I could see the deficit they represented as a trigger for active work to improve my performance on math exams in future. I could think improvement instead of regret. Improving is future-oriented and says,

“OK, look at why you missed those 2 points so that you can fill those gaps in understanding. Then do the work that can change the future.”

If I want to improve, I need to step forward. Improving gives you somewhere to go, something to do, and a new performance to prepare for. My new formulation looks something like this:

EXPECTATION

• My goal will always be to earn 100 out of 100 points on an exam and I’ll do the work that takes. I expect to do well on exams.

REALITY

• I earned 98 points, which is both very good and very close to 100 points = CELEBRATION
• I missed 2 points, so I can improve my performance = COMMITMENT TO IMPROVE

Having high expectations and failing to meet them doesn’t have to lead to regret. You can continue to set high expectations and replace regret with 1) celebrating where you succeeded and 2) figuring out how to improve for next time, so there can be future celebrations!