Edith Piaf, raised in brothel, a street singer discovered by a nightclub owner at 20, who became the most famous French chanteuse ever, has as one of her most famous songs, "Non, je ne regrette rien," which translates as "No, I regret nothing."
It's a powerful, strident tune. Piaf's delivery of the title line is pugnacious, almost rebellious. This is a woman who has been scarred by life, has given and received both pleasure and pain. And she is determined that none of it matters. She knows exactly what she's done, and she regrets none of it.
When we say the phrase, "no regrets," it is usually with this kind of defiance in mind. And to live a life that has no regrets is considered a life goal of sorts, something that is enviable. We all want to be able to get to the end of our lives and be able to state with Edith Piaf-like assurance, that despite all we did and could have done, we regret nothing.
I recently had a discussion with a person who had "no regrets" not because they knew that there were potential bad decisions in their past that they were determined to move past, but because they truly, in all honesty, believed that they had never really done anything that they needed to feel real regret for.
The thing about saying that you have no regrets in that context is that if that's really true, if you really don't harbor any feelings that you could have done something differently or better and had the sense that that something could have significantly altered the course of your life then one of two things has to be true. Either you are lying to yourself, and have created a narrative of your life that conveniently ignores significant impacts of your major life decisions. Or, alternatively, you are completely oblivious to the impact that your actions have had on other people because you have been protected from the consequences of your choices by the people around you.
Is eliminating regret really something we want to aspire to? Do regrets serve a purpose?
On one level, the answer to to the question of do we want to minimize regret is yes, we probably do. Regrets hurt. They aren't fun. The moments that I wish I'd handled differently are very present in my psyche. They rear their ugly heads at inopportune moments when I am not expecting it. Even though I have in most instances taken action to deal with the negative impacts of my action, I still replay things over and over again in my head. Like a lot of people, I'm hard on myself. Why on earth would anyone want to encourage that kind of experience? It doesn't make sense that anyone would WANT to feel like they screwed up.
But it's also a known fact that no one is perfect. You do not get through life without making mistakes. You're a human being living on planet earth. That means that you will do things that hurt yourself and others. You won't necessarily intend to do it, but you will anyway. That's just how it works. We make decisions and choices and do things, and not all of those decisions, choices and actions work out the way we want them to. There is no way that you are an adult human who has never injured someone else and never made a mistake.
But it is true we live in a world where some people get shielded from the consequences of their mistakes. The parent who storms the teacher's office demanding that their child's grade be changed, or that the detention their child received be rescinded often succeeds in protecting their child from what would have been the natural by-product of their actions. The sibling who takes the fall for their brother's screw up. The underling who compensates for his supervisor's blunder in the meeting.
Not everyone who inflicts an injury is held accountable for what they've done. And sometimes that's because the injured party chooses NOT to say anything about their injury. Raise your hand if you've ever had someone say something in a conversation that was low key insulting and you didn't actually call them out on it. Yep, I see you. Me too, my friend.
Many of us, particularly women and other folks from marginalized groups have been well-versed in the art of swallowing hurt from the little digs that people can throw into a conversation, sometimes not even knowing how what they are saying is actually hurtful. The white woman who tells her Black waiter, "Oh you are SO articulate!" The man who tells his date, "I usually don't like fat girls, but you're really cute." The kid with a learning disability who hears a kid at the lunch table yell at another of his peers, "Oh my god! That is SO RETARDED!" about something. The buzzword for this is "microaggression," but whatever you choose to use the buzzwords or not, the fact is, that shit HURTS.
And yes, the waiter could say, "you do understand that's low-key insulting?" The date could get up and walk out. The kid could pipe up and say, "please don't use the word 'retarded.'" But often even that rather mild push-back ends up creating a big conflagration, where the party being called out becomes belligerent, choosing to interpret the expression of having been injured as fake, or as a personal judgement of their entire character. It's completely understandable that rather than open up that can of worms, the waiter will bite their tongue, smile, and keep serving. The date will wait until her earliest opportunity to leave graciously with a smile on her face. The kid will hold their tongue, and hope no one uses that word to describe them. It's not worth dealing with the inevitable need for explanation, for justification of their feelings.
Because the hard truth is that our society will offer protection and coddling of some people's feelings so that they do not experience anything negative, while at the same time demanding that others justify their hurt feelings. Who gets protected and who doesn't is about social power -- who has it and who doesn't in any given situation. And it's often less about who is objectively right or wrong, and more about whose feelings are considered more important and therefore more worthy of protection.
That's some luck, you might think. How do I get to be one of those privileged, protected people? How can i make it so that people cater to my feelings and help me avoid the consequences of my actions? Wouldn't that be great!
But is it?
Sometimes not being regretful is a great thing. What's great about the Edith Piaf style of not having regrets is that it's perfectly aware that there have been mistakes, there has been pain. But the thing she's got on the other side of all that was totally worth it. The Piaf-style of not regretting isn't oblivious to the pain and hurt, and isn't avoiding anything. In fact, she is embracing the the pain and the hurt as a necessary precursor to reach the moment she is at now. There is self-awareness, and conscious choice and an owning of the consequences. There is no privilege or protection or escape here. Only endurance and transcendence.
But what about the other type of "no regrets?" The one where an individual bumbles through life, assured that they are innocent, and protected from consequences. Is that lucky and wonderful? Perhaps. If you're Forrest Gump.
Forrest Gump, played by Tom Hanks in the Oscar-winning movie of the same name, is an interesting study in how Americans, (particularly certain white Americans) see themselves and their country. Forrest Gump is a child of a single mother (played by Sally Field) and offers the life story of this young white man from Alabama, born in the middle of the 20th Century and who, by all appearances, is none too smart.
Forrest, despite his humble beginnings, ends up leading an extraordinary life. He becomes a college football star, enlists in the army and fights in the Vietnam War, miraculously escaping the horrors of the conflict (unlike his pal, Lieutenant Dan) and befriending a Black soldier with whom he establishes a shrimping company. His on again, off again love interest, Jenny, spends a lifetime chasing the counter culture, and good vibes and drugs and sex until she finally marries Forrest only to die a year later from a "mysterious virus."
A lot of energy by more adept film critics has been spent mulling over what the movie really has to say about the American experience, and whether it is critical of or supporting a traditionalist view of America. I'm going to instead focus on the fact that Forrest Gump seems to have a miraculous ability to insert himself into historic situations and to survive horrible situations that end up doing serious harm to those around him. He is the sine qua non of being able to live a consequence free life. No matter what disabilities both physical and mental he might have, no matter what terrifying or emotionally difficult situations he finds himself in, he emerges unscathed, and even more successful than before.
Indeed, the whole purpose of the other characters in the film -- Bubba, Lt. Dan, and especially Jenny -- seems to be to absorb the impacts of the crises and incidents that Gump manages to breeze through. Gump's inability to really be fully impacted and involved in what's around him means that his actions in some cases actually wind up inadvertently harming the people he claims to care about. And yet, none of them really hold him accountable for what he says or does, or expect him to own any of the scenarios in which Gump finds himself. Gump is able to reach the conclusion of the film proclaiming that "life is like a box of chocolates," which is basically a statement that he doesn't have any regrets -- he may not know what all the flavors in the box will be, but he's guaranteed that all of them will be sweet. Forrest is the ultimate example of what it means to live without being conscious of any regrets.
At first blush Forrest seems to have lived an enviable life. But does anyone really want to be Forrest Gump? Do you really want to leave a swath of hurt in your wake that no one ever tells you about and that you are too dumb to notice? Do you want to be the "lucky one" who always seems to come out on top when everyone else is bearing the pain that by rights should have also landed on you? What kind of a person does that make you, really? Is being that person something you can be proud of? Forrest Gump isn't an aspirational character or a hero. He's a child-man with very little of substance to offer the world. Indeed, that is part of the reason why, despite its accolades, more recently observers have been far more critical of the film.
If the white woman in the restaurant understood how calling a Black man "articulate" perpetuates racial stereotypes, she might regret having said it. If the guy understood how his remark really made his date feel, he might regret his words. And if the boy in the lunchroom knew how his use of a slur impacted those around him, he might regret having said it.
And that regret might mean they do better next time. If they are mature enough to be open to it and take the lesson.
Regrets are the tip-off that let you know that you have work to do. Without them, you walk around oblivious to your faults and failures. You're that perpetual child who hurts people and fucks up and never learns. And while on paper that seems like it might be a nice way to go through life, no one really wants to be Forrest Gump.
Regrets are the building blocks of self-awareness. They are a critical component of living an adult life as a fully capable and responsible person. You either embrace the regret as a necessary component to a larger victory, or you embrace it as a lesson that will help you be a better person in the future.
Among witches, this cultivation of self-awareness is part of what we call "shadow work." And if you are a witch just starting to look at the concept of shadow work and you are uncertain where to begin, ask yourself one question: What are my regrets?
I guarantee you that the inquiry, done honestly, will quickly surface some fertile ground in which to explore your shadow self. And if you are having trouble identifying regrets to look more closely at, that's a thing to start digging into as well. Why don't you have regrets?
(As always, go gently with yourself into shadow. Its not an easy process, but it doesn't have to feel like you are tearing yourself out of your own skin. Be prepared to seek help if you need it. You don't have to do this alone.)
A regret is an opportunity, an invitation to step up and grow. Some people lean into those opportunities. Others run from them. The person who has no regrets because they do not recognize their wrongdoing is running. He is either a simpleton or a coward.