Bengaluru
The response to FC 230 on Luck & Chance was not robust. I suppose I took a ‘chance’ but was ‘lucky’ enough to get a few faithful readers to comment on it.
Lakshmi Raman says: “Now I've woken up this morning - my brain galvanised into thinking about luck, chance, serendipity and happenstance, fluke and blessing with today's FC. It reminds me of when I was in high school English grammar class, studying Ronald Ridout (oh, he was kind of the Bible for grammar back then). But this is far more interesting and pleasurable. Finally, pure serendipity brought me to FC, by browsing SubStack and finding FC, long before I first met you. Thank you for another Sunday's musings.”
Tarun Kunzru: “Chance is an ‘inside thing’ and Luck is an ‘outside thing’. We 'take' a chance, it's a conscious thing. Luck is a random 'tailwind' or 'headwind' which is completely out of your control. Big wins often happen when one takes a chance. The key is to see how much the drop is in the event the chance doesn't pay off.”
Murali Neelakantan: “Dear Pras, Wasn’t ‘Backstop’ the little kid who’d stand way behind the wicketkeeper in maidan cricket? No one expected him to do any more than throw the ball back to the keeper. Those were days when there were no “back runs” so he was perhaps the least useful fielder. Often he was the youngest kid and very little was expected of him on the field. Your posts dig up so many old memories. Thank you!”
💭 Coping With Regrets
Dear Readers, don’t get me wrong. I am not a counsellor, nor am I qualified to give advice. What I intend to do is share some thoughts on how we might cope with regrets rather than live with regrets. Let me tell you about my regret which came flooding back on the 8th of January when I attended the annual ceremony of my maternal uncle.
My maternal uncle, 102 years old, who remained a bachelor and devoted his life to taking care of us, slipped into dementia, and it became increasingly a challenge looking after him and controlling his mood swings, which sometimes became physical.
My mother, who often expressed her concern that her brother may not be looked after well when he retired from the army, would often tell me that we should not do anything to hurt his feelings, make him feel wanted, and not desert him in his old age. My siblings and I did live up to our mother’s expectations of us until dementia became a formidable challenge. I may say here that I was perhaps more attached to him and so, my mother’s words rang in my ears each time we pondered over putting him in an elder care facility.
We managed as much as we could but the time came when it became rather tough to handle him and his many moods. We eventually took him to an eldercare facility. He was oblivious to this domiciliary shift, but he would realise off and on that he was not at home with us. It was those moments that were very hard on me, and when I went to see him, he would hold on to my hand tightly and beg me to take him back home. Many times I felt like giving in to his pleading remembering what my mother said to me. He passed away while being at the elder care. I regretted putting him there and making his last days traumatic. I regretted not living up to my mother's expectations and regretted consigning him to the eldercare. I lived with that regret for many years and am still coping with it.
Living with one regret or the other is not uncommon for all of us. It is difficult to cope with it if the situation was in our control and we did not or could not prevent its occurrence. The intensity of emotion involved in the occurrence of a regrettable action decides the tenure of that regret and how long it might haunt you. Time, too, may fail to heal you if you believe that regretting is a form of penance.
The sense of ownership of a regrettable action makes it deep-rooted, and one would frequently relive that moment and agonise over it. It can be seen as an obsession if one were to relentlessly reflect ruefully over something bad that happened or regret something bad that could have been avoided. Living a bad experience over and over again, wishing it never happened, can be traumatic.
Reflecting and rationalising does help and I did try doing it. But I wondered why I did not think of a solution better than consigning him to eldercare. I realise regret clouds our thinking and clutters our brains with all kinds of thoughts more of the irrational kind than rational.
I also realise that reflecting and regretting should not be considered synonymous.
If one reflects more on an incident or occurrence instead of regretting it, one may rationalise, think of ways to avoid repeating it, or find a way to make amends.
It is common for us to regret having said or done something. But we should move from regret to reflection, which helps us think through what happened, how it happened, who caused it to happen, and whether it was justified or not. Reflecting helps us think clearly. It is for this reason that meditation is recommended, as it helps us reflect on a regrettable incident and come to terms with it.
I understand meditative reflection is a very powerful process. It helps the mind to analyse a certain matter and either come to terms with it or take a positive view and dispel any misgiving that may be associated with it. Meditation helps you sort out the web of conflicts and the flood of diverse thoughts and paints a clearer picture of the situation that is the cause of regret.
You may have heard people preface their conversation with “On reflection, I think I should not have/could have done this.” In either case, it is not an expression of regret but a sign of realisation. Reflection can have positive connotations like introspection, contemplation, and cogitation. You tend to introspect, before taking a particular action or embarking on something that’s out of the ordinary, thinking of the consequences of your action or planning your next move. Reflecting on your past may evoke mixed reactions. Some of it may make you smile and some may make you frown.
I came across this concept of counterfactual thinking. It essentially means that we look back and simulate scenarios that could have avoided or lowered the seriousness of the regrettable incident. It is said that regret is a negative emotion that hinges on counterfactual thinking. Just as I am unable to shake off that one regrettable action, many people carry regrets like a millstone. They suffer from mental rumination, a phrase that refers to the thought pattern that involves repeatedly focusing on negative feelings.
Sometimes, comparisons may help dull the pain of regret. If someone has thrown the parents out of the house to fend for themselves did I do better by opting for eldercare and caring for my uncle? Hmm… Coping with regret can be formidable if it relates to opportunities that a person has missed. Imagine missing an opportunity to represent your country after failing to qualify. It will linger but may well make you determined to try and make the cut.
All of us have regrets. Some may say ‘I have no regrets’ in a given situation. But that is indeed situation-specific. Many people advocate adopting an attitude of ‘it could have been worse’ to stem the onset of regret. Like you regret not making the cut for promotion, but you think of your family and tell yourself, “Thank God, I still have a job.” You then can focus on shortcomings that denied you the promotion.
My own experiences with coping with regret have taught me not to analyse them with the benefit of hindsight — to not characterise the decisions taken at that time as bad but to recognise that it was the best one could do at that moment. Regrets will lurk in the deep recess of your mind and when something triggers them to surface, use reflective meditation to calm the mind. Regrets won’t go away but you will learn to cope with it.
Now in a lighter vein:
A prisoner talks to his cellmate about his regrets
- If I had listened to my mother, I wouldn't be in prison
- What did she say?
- I don't know I didn't listen
Dear readers, I hope you liked this post. Do share your perspectives. Until next week, take care and be safe. 🙂 Ciao!
Good morning Prasanna. This week's FC is in a more serious vein, coming as it does from your recent experience with your aged uncle. I recall reading in an ad (of all things) the following words: "Four things come not back - the spoken word, the sped arrow, time past and a neglected opportunity." I suppose regret accompanies all or any of these four for many of us -the arrow only for those who are marksmen - but the essence is that these are things we cannot undo, and hence the regret. Reflection, meditation and sometimes, if the regret relates to relationships, reaching out helps to mitigate some of the regret and enable us to move on.
"we should move from regret to reflection, which helps us think through what happened, how it happened, who caused it to happen, and whether it was justified or not. Reflecting helps us think clearly. It is for this reason that meditation is recommended, as it helps us reflect on a regrettable incident and come to terms with it."
Well said. This is the best way to eschew the sense of remorse that keeps haunting one for a long time after the incident. Meditation is the best way known so far to to get over the sense of guilt even though it was not one's own fault but caused by justifiable circumstances obtaining at the point of that incident.
Sending one's parents, or even one of them after the demise of the other, to an "Assisted Senior Living" has become too common these days due to a variety of reasons most of which are fairly reasonable. But what is more important is keeping in touch with that person by frequent visits not only by self but with other members of the family as well in order to keep the emotional bond of the family alive.