No Regrets, Only Next
On Honesty, Mercy, and Making Space
WOMP. That was the muffled sound of my brother’s front teeth hitting the rim of the bathtub. Then came a remarkably long silence, followed by an infernal scream. Blood dripped from his mouth. My mother rushed in, worry sharp in her eyes, and asked what happened. I explained that he slipped and hit the rim.
Except that was a lie.
The fact that my brother’s two front teeth were rammed back into his gums, had to be pulled out with pliers, and later turned black wasn’t his fault.
It was my fault—I had pulled his legs out from under him. On purpose. I never meant for that to happen. But I was too scared to admit it.
This story haunted me for almost 18 years. Whenever it was told at family gatherings, it gave me a burning sting. The past, it turns out, is loud even when it’s silent.
After my “honesty awakening” and learning to be honest with people close to me about my feelings and sensations, I came clean. I told both my brother and my mother the full story. To my complete disbelief and surprise, both of them said, “Ah, okay. Never mind.”
Years of shame and regret—for nothing.
What That Response Taught Me
That moment showed me how useless and debilitating regret becomes when it turns chronic. As Shakespeare gives the blunt version:
“What’s done cannot be undone.”
The question is what we do next.
As I see it now, regret tends to split into two kinds:
Regret for having done something that shouldn’t have been done.
Regret for not having done something that should have been done.
In both cases, the result is the same: this is what happened. The feeling of regret holds your present hostage. If regret is a signal, its job is to inform and then be dismissed—otherwise it calcifies into rumination.
The Way Through
You can let go of regret and move forward. Both kinds can be overcome only by action and forgiveness. To stop regretting what you didn’t do, either do it now or make a plan. If you can’t do it anymore, or you did something you shouldn’t have done, you have to forgive yourself.
Forgiveness is a lost superpower—and the core of Jesus’s teachings. Learn how to forgive yourself, and then others. Forgiveness doesn’t excuse the harm; it releases you from carrying it. If meditation cultivates equanimity toward whatever arises, forgiveness acknowledges what happened for what it was and allows you to move on from it. As the Stoics might put it, we can’t control the past, only our present posture toward it.
What Forgiveness Is—and Isn't
I used to fear that forgiving would make me approve of bad behavior, the way I once feared that meditation would make me indifferent.
I was wrong on both counts.
Forgiveness is not approval, and it is not reconciliation.
It changes your relationship to the past; it doesn’t obligate you to excuse harm or re-enter unsafe dynamics. If you like frameworks, psychologist Everett Worthington’s REACH model (Recall, Empathize, Altruistic gift, Commit, Hold) offers a practical way to do this work.
A Story I Return To
There’s a story about an older and a younger monk hiking. They come to a river where a young woman is waiting because she is afraid to cross it on her own. The old monk lifts her up, carries her over, sets her down on the other side, and continues walking. After two hours, the younger monk can’t hold it in anymore. “Why did you pick up that woman? You know that, according to our rules, we’re not allowed to touch women?” “I set the woman down two hours ago. Why are you still carrying her?” replies the old monk.
I think of this whenever I catch myself carrying a grudge or regret about something or someone for months, even years. As mundane as it may sound—and as often as it’s already happened—remembering to set the burden down has been extremely valuable to me.
The Music of Time
The fleeting nature of time—nothing ever comes back, whatever happened happened—is most tangible for me in music. You hear a note, and then it’s gone. You can’t cling to it. Only because it’s gone is there space, silence, and room for the next note. Only then can a melody develop. As Faulkner wrote:
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
But in practice, the note has already sounded. The question is whether we keep replaying it in our heads, or make room for the next phrase.
I can’t change what happened, but I can change how I relate to it—right now. And the best next step for that is forgiveness.
One sticky note I once saw summarizes its power for me in a beautiful way:
Forgiving is for giving, not for getting or forgetting.
If you really start forgiving yourself—if you start owning the mess that is your life—you become free.
Free from regrets.
Free from the shackles of your past.
Free to openly explore and shape the future of what lies ahead.
That is a life of no regrets.
To more from life
Nicco
The song for letting go: