I read something interesting today about regrets: a study suggested that people in freer countries feel more regret than people in less free countries. Now, whether that's true or not, I don't know, but the underlying point was interesting: people feel regret when they think they could have made a different decision in the past. If the decision was simply made for them, then they are less likely to blame themselves for how things turned out and therefore feel less regret. In my own world, I realize that I have been feeling tremendous regret. But in doing so, I am judging my actions in the 1990s using a morality that's really only started to become widespread in the 21st century, especially so in recent years. Twenty years ago may not seem all that long ago, but as many of us here know, societal views on LGBT issues have changed radically in that time. Back when I was a kid in the mid-1990s, the morality of my world dictated that being gay was something to be brutally repressed. The morality of that time largely considered gays as things, not as people. Granted, that wasn't the perspective of all people in all places, but it was where I grew up. But now, even if just inside my own head, I live in a different morality, a place where being gay is kind of okay, as long as you aren't causing harm to other people. I can actually choose to come out, to find a partner, to live a gay life as an actual human being. But that choice didn't always exist in the world I inhabited, and I had to make choices based on the world as I understood it. Now, please don't think that I'm "forgiving" my past self. I didn't do anything to forgive. I acted in the best way I could in the bad situation in which I found myself. I just wish the environment I grew up in had been different, could have been more like the environment in which I find myself today. What I am trying to do is to put my past into its correct historical context and to not judge my decisions based on the context I find today. Maybe that's something some people out there can identify with, though I know it won't be everyone. And that's okay. Your historical context was likely just very different from mine.
This is true, all of what you say is true, it's important for you to remember that your actions and decisions were responses to culture, social forces which are powerful and toxic in many ways. I'm glad to see you introspecting about this, but I'll say it again, as I did in another if your threads. The biggest antidote to regret for me thus far has not been through introspection; as many of the folks on here have urged me to realise, action and taking baby steps (or big ones!) is the key to getting rid of regrets. I'm still making baby steps but my regret is finally gone. I'm not even close to being that far on my journey but I have let go of a lot of negativity through action.
Everyone should work through their regret in whichever way works for them; and as well, different people have regret for different reasons. As your doing, the point is to recognise regret is self imposed and, if you choose, can be overcome. I really appreciate posts like this!
A counselor who ran a coming out group I attended liked for us to not say we regretted our decisions in the past, but to say "it made sense at the time." I think that approach puts things in perspective, much like what you are saying. I definitely relate. I was in high school from 1997-2001. It doesn't feel that long ago. And yet I remember there being nobody who was openly gay in my rather large Brooklyn high school. Even college, there were only about a dozen openly gay people at my school (not the largest school, admittedly). I see my younger gay friends now and it's so clear that things are way different for how much more open things are as they grow up. It makes me happy that hopefully now people who felt like I did when I was 14 can face less confusion and frustration and just be themselves.
I completely accept that staying in the closet in my teens (I turned 13 in 1980) was the best/only rationale for living/surviving, as I did back then, in a horribly homophobic society. But it did have consequences. Most of all it caused me to miss out on that vital function of adolescence – the formation of a coherent identity. Such a vital part of identity formation is experiencing relationships with all their ups and downs – the good bits and the bad bits. That should be gone through when we are teens, and not delayed ‘til much later. I was ready to date boys when I was fourteen or fifteen. Indeed, I needed to! I needed to in order to fully understand who I was. I was ready to, I needed to, but I didn’t because society made it impossible. So I didn’t, couldn’t learn all those special, vital lessons about myself when I should have – when I was a teen. I don’t regret this. I simply know it as a fact. That it didn’t happen was perfectly rational. But, even so, it wasn’t right and it wasn’t good. But it just… was.
Regrets? Yes. I feel I should have come out a lot earlier, perhaps college. In high school, however, if i had come out, I would not be writing this right now. In a small redneck Texas town in the late 80's it would have meant certian death for me. One kid who came out at that time was beaten relentlessly, teachers preached to him constantly, telling him that God could fix him. He left school not long after that. In an environment like that, you stay in the closet as deeply as possible. That fear stayed in me for a long time. Nowadays, I am at the point in my life that I could truly care less what anyone thinks about me. I think it's exceptionally fantastic that kids are coming out at younger ages. We still have a long way to go
The social environment at the school I went to was extraordinarily, viciously homophobic. It immediately infected my class. Some of my class mates who, during the previous two years, had been lively but, in the main, sweet natured, had suddenly turned in a swarm of homophobic wasps. Their first victim was a new boy, Jon, who had been placed in our class. Being a ‘new boy’ made his situation tough enough. That he was painfully shy no doubt made it harder. That he was skinny, fair-haired, pale skinned, and maybe somewhat feminine sealed his fate. A few days after the start of term a rumour went around that he had been caught kissing with another boy, and, because of that, had been expelled from his previous school in homosexual disgrace. That we knew there was little chance of this rumour containing even a grain of truth mattered not a jot. He became the victim of constant verbal and physical assault. Ceaselessly he was punched, kicked, beaten up, spat upon. His clothes were ripped, his belongings stolen. He withstood this for a few weeks and then, thankfully for him, he was gone. I can only assume his parents took pity and withdrew him from his living hell. That was the mad hell so many of us grew up in... I damned well hope its better now.
We recently ran an experiment that failed (this happens often in science, and it is not a waste, we learned). We had all the data we needed to make a better decision, but other factors determined what seemed like a good idea at the time. In other words, data, all by itself, is not enough to form the right decision, it takes something else: an ability to recognize the value of those facts. Often, the value of those pesky little facts are only recognized after the failure...such is life! In other words, because we are rushed, or stressed, or ideologically blind to any other alternatives, we fail to hear that still, small voice, that teeny tiny little fact that could have made all the difference.... It is natural to feel regret...but to the clear-eyed stoic that I aspire to be, this is a wasted emotion, principally because the past is beyond my control. There is still value in failure, we learn...so learn, and move on, life only goes forward, it is the only arena within which we may have some influence on the outcome.
For some reason this made me think of a book I read so long ago I no longer remember anything other than the title: Be Here Now, by Ram Das (Richard Alpert). Those three words pretty much sum up the way I try to live what remains of my life. Everything else is water under the bridge, and all of it contributed to who I am today.
My relationship with regret is complex and represents a synthesis of GW's stoic and Weston's Buddhist perspectives. Once I decided to come out, I realized that regret was a luxury I could not afford. I did my best not to indulge in regret and decided to seize the day. At some level I put regret in the closet. Now that I'm out, I still feel regret occasionally but in a new form. Because life is so much better, I get the "why didn't I do this sooner" flavor of regret. I no longer put regret in the closet. I feel the reality of the emotion and then quickly transmute it into acceptance because I'm living fully in the moment.
