To do or not to do. Is it better to speak or stay silent? To act or not? Our brains need visuals to rationalize our actions; without these visuals, we are left wondering. Will we come up with hundreds of what-ifs, making the consequence of inaction worse for us psychologically than action?
The Anatomy Of A Regret
What is regret? Feeling regret is the painful longing for an alternative that could have been better. We experience regrets every day; it can be something small, like feeling you should have worn a different hoodie that morning, or as big as not going to class only to realize you had a quiz. In these scenarios, we are always going to visualize what our lives would have been like if we had done these things. We are going to think about all of the ways that our day would have been improved if we had done things differently. We tend to think to extremes because we cannot visualize things we have never acted out. Our minds will wander because we are unable to rationalize, often sending us spiraling.
Long-term Regrets
The inability to visualize and rationalize is what creates our long-term regrets. These are regrets of inaction. These regrets feel good in the short term but will affect you more in the long run because your brain creates too many what-if scenarios. This inaction leaves you without closure. Maybe you had feelings for someone and chose to stay silent and never tell them. In the short term, this may seem like the safe option, but as time goes on, you will begin to be overwhelmed with the different scenarios that could have happened had you said something.
Short-term Regrets
Short-term regrets are the regret of an action. These regrets often hurt in the short term, right after they have been completed, but this will fade. The feeling of regret will begin to fade because you are aware of what the outcome was. With this knowledge, you are able to minimize and rationalize your actions. This is where the psychological immune system comes into play. The psychological immune system adapts to negative outcomes rather than just reacting to them. Similarly, our minds react more to the presence of things than to their absence. These actions give us closure, which means our minds are less likely to spiral.
Counterfactual Thinking
Counterfactual thinking is the process of comparing what did happen to what might have happened. When you are thinking counterfactually, that is when you are asking yourself, “What if?”
Upward counterfactual thinking is when you are asking yourself how a situation could have turned out better. If you had studied for just five more minutes, would you have gotten a better score on your exam?
Downward counterfactual thinking is when you begin to think about how things could have been worse. These thoughts often make us feel better because there could have been a worse outcome than the one that happened.
Close-call counterfactual thinking is “what might have been?” This thinking occurs when something “almost” happens. Oftentimes in sports, when someone receives second place, they are the most disappointed about the outcome because of this thinking. They spiral thinking about the small mistakes that they could have changed to put them in first place. When thinking back, it is easier to undo what we did to change the outcome
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