No Regrets

Thomas Gilovich, a psychologist at Cornell university, has been studying the psychology of regret for over 10 years. Over that time a large number of people has been interviewed and asked about their biggest regret. Interestingly, it seems that people are much more likely to regret doing NOTHING as they are to regret any single decision. Around 75% of those interviewed regret not doing something - here are the top 3 slots: not studying hard enough at school, not taking advantage of an opportunity and failing to spend enough time with friends and family.

In contrast only 25% of people regret doing something such as a poor career choice or marriage to someone they didn't love.

Why should this be the case?
well its easy to see the consequences of bad decisions you have made isn't it? - that bad relationship takes years to get out of and leaves a trail of unpleasantness, or the job you took that seemed good at the time but now is dull and tedious. However you never see the consequences of things you haven't done and you might spend time wondering 'what if?'


"For all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: it might have been"