On regret
"Better to regret something you have done than something you haven't done." goes the saying. I'm not so sure. (And not just because it makes me think the Butthole Surfers are about to go "Satan! Satan! Satan!" shortly after.)
In fact, I have it in the same "sounds wise on the surface but is quite wrong if you think about it" category as things like "What does not kill me makes me stronger".
It's true in some contexts, at best. Some people are under confident about some things, or have excessive fears about how something might turn out, and would be well advised to do things that they are currently contemplating.
But as a general rule it's just wrong.
Morally, we generally put a lot more weight on actions than inactions. We think very badly of someone who could've dived in to save a drowning person but didn't. But if someone actively and deliberately drowns someone else, we think a lot worse of them. The former is reprehensible; the latter is a murderer. So here we have a complete inversion: better to regret not saving a drowning person than to regret drowning someone.
(To be fair not every moral code would make this distinction, particularly some flavours of consequentialism. But I certainly do, and so do most people.)
What about particular cases?
In flying, it's such a bad maxim that there is a saying specifically designed to counter that impulse: "Better to be stuck on the ground wishing you were in the air than vice versa."
What about career or job moves? That's an area that folk wisdom tends to apply this saying. And I'll grant that it's sometimes true - sometimes people don't go for an opportunity (or create one) when it would've been better to do so. But it's not always true, by a long shot.
Just last week I was talking to a friend about a time when his company was facing a serious downturn: he could see the writing on the wall. Should he make a leap to another job? On the "better to regret action than inaction" principle he gave in his notice and got a post at a different outfit. Two months later, the management at his old company recognised the inevitable ... and announced generous redundancy packages. Several old colleagues came to work with him at his new employer - and they had a fat redundancy cheque in the bank.
There's similar examples in literature too - poor old Leonard Bast in E. M. Forster's Howard's End decides to leave his steady, respectable but boring bank teller job (on admittedly dreadful advice, but he had no way of knowing that at the time) and it all goes terribly, terribly wrong for him.
He's later faced with another "go for it or not" moment, and decides to go for it and have an affair with Helen Schlegel ... and predictably (she's the one who advised him to quit his job) it turns out to have been the worse choice by a long chalk.
Which brings us nicely on to romantic/intimate relationships, which are, perhaps, where the "better regret something you did than something you didn't" principle is most often applied. But it's far from always true there, as Leonard Bast would tell you.
Two unattached people mooning over each other constantly, all their friends can tell they're hot for each other. Should they go for it? Probably.
But not always. Say the last three people you went out with turned out nasty. A fourth turns up on your radar, and you feel instantly familiar with them, and your underwear is saying "yes yes" ... but there's a small voice in the back of your head saying "I'm not so sure". Best go for it? Probably not.
The I've-had-an-affair-and-it's-ruined-my-life (and-everyone-else's) letter is a staple of agony columns for a good reason. The standard advice to someone contemplating one is "Nooooo". (The more interesting advice is "if you want to renegotiate your relationship, do it before breaking the current terms, not after".)
It can be good to push your boundaries ... but not always. The heat of the moment is a very bad time to think through safety for something you've not done before. Should you have a bareback quickie with the hot guy you just met in the back room? Better to regret something you did, right? Well, in this situation, the potential negative consequences of choosing not to act are more recoverable-from than those from choosing to act. If you find yourself still regretting not doing it on Monday morning you can probably find another chap next Friday night, and you could bring condoms that time.
Tattoos are another area where it's easier to fix an inaction regret than an action regret.
Finally, let's take drugs. I of all people am not going to give general advice not to experiment. Most people who do don't regret it, though certainly some do - sometimes very deeply indeed. But it's very unusual to find people who wish they had tried a particular drug (and if you do, you could try now), and far from uncommon to find people who wish they hadn't tried something (generally hallucinogenics, or harder stuff).
In general, not going for it - or at least, not going for it immediately - has, in many contexts, the great benefit that you can wait, get more information, and do it later if you still think it's a good idea. Obviously, there are some time-critical go/no-go decisions where "not now" means "no for all time", but there aren't that many.
So, to sum up, it's very hard to make a blanket statement here. I think we can and should dispense with "Better to regret something you have done than something you haven't" as a policy. But what to put in its place?
I might be tempted by something like "Look before you leap" or, more precisely, "Carefully weigh the advantages and disadvantages before embarking on any significant course of action or inaction, particularly if there are permanent or hard-to-recover consequences" but that ignores the opportunity costs of the consideration and the impossibility of evaluating all possible courses of inaction, it isn't actually good advice in many contexts, and most damningly, isn't snappy.
Maybe I could settle on "It depends. It's complicated."
But even then - sometimes, it's quite simple.
This entry crossposted to http://doug.dreamwidth.org/243672.html, where there are
comment(s) not shown here.
In fact, I have it in the same "sounds wise on the surface but is quite wrong if you think about it" category as things like "What does not kill me makes me stronger".
It's true in some contexts, at best. Some people are under confident about some things, or have excessive fears about how something might turn out, and would be well advised to do things that they are currently contemplating.
But as a general rule it's just wrong.
Morally, we generally put a lot more weight on actions than inactions. We think very badly of someone who could've dived in to save a drowning person but didn't. But if someone actively and deliberately drowns someone else, we think a lot worse of them. The former is reprehensible; the latter is a murderer. So here we have a complete inversion: better to regret not saving a drowning person than to regret drowning someone.
(To be fair not every moral code would make this distinction, particularly some flavours of consequentialism. But I certainly do, and so do most people.)
What about particular cases?
In flying, it's such a bad maxim that there is a saying specifically designed to counter that impulse: "Better to be stuck on the ground wishing you were in the air than vice versa."
What about career or job moves? That's an area that folk wisdom tends to apply this saying. And I'll grant that it's sometimes true - sometimes people don't go for an opportunity (or create one) when it would've been better to do so. But it's not always true, by a long shot.
Just last week I was talking to a friend about a time when his company was facing a serious downturn: he could see the writing on the wall. Should he make a leap to another job? On the "better to regret action than inaction" principle he gave in his notice and got a post at a different outfit. Two months later, the management at his old company recognised the inevitable ... and announced generous redundancy packages. Several old colleagues came to work with him at his new employer - and they had a fat redundancy cheque in the bank.
There's similar examples in literature too - poor old Leonard Bast in E. M. Forster's Howard's End decides to leave his steady, respectable but boring bank teller job (on admittedly dreadful advice, but he had no way of knowing that at the time) and it all goes terribly, terribly wrong for him.
He's later faced with another "go for it or not" moment, and decides to go for it and have an affair with Helen Schlegel ... and predictably (she's the one who advised him to quit his job) it turns out to have been the worse choice by a long chalk.
Which brings us nicely on to romantic/intimate relationships, which are, perhaps, where the "better regret something you did than something you didn't" principle is most often applied. But it's far from always true there, as Leonard Bast would tell you.
Two unattached people mooning over each other constantly, all their friends can tell they're hot for each other. Should they go for it? Probably.
But not always. Say the last three people you went out with turned out nasty. A fourth turns up on your radar, and you feel instantly familiar with them, and your underwear is saying "yes yes" ... but there's a small voice in the back of your head saying "I'm not so sure". Best go for it? Probably not.
The I've-had-an-affair-and-it's-ruined-my-life (and-everyone-else's) letter is a staple of agony columns for a good reason. The standard advice to someone contemplating one is "Nooooo". (The more interesting advice is "if you want to renegotiate your relationship, do it before breaking the current terms, not after".)
It can be good to push your boundaries ... but not always. The heat of the moment is a very bad time to think through safety for something you've not done before. Should you have a bareback quickie with the hot guy you just met in the back room? Better to regret something you did, right? Well, in this situation, the potential negative consequences of choosing not to act are more recoverable-from than those from choosing to act. If you find yourself still regretting not doing it on Monday morning you can probably find another chap next Friday night, and you could bring condoms that time.
Tattoos are another area where it's easier to fix an inaction regret than an action regret.
Finally, let's take drugs. I of all people am not going to give general advice not to experiment. Most people who do don't regret it, though certainly some do - sometimes very deeply indeed. But it's very unusual to find people who wish they had tried a particular drug (and if you do, you could try now), and far from uncommon to find people who wish they hadn't tried something (generally hallucinogenics, or harder stuff).
In general, not going for it - or at least, not going for it immediately - has, in many contexts, the great benefit that you can wait, get more information, and do it later if you still think it's a good idea. Obviously, there are some time-critical go/no-go decisions where "not now" means "no for all time", but there aren't that many.
So, to sum up, it's very hard to make a blanket statement here. I think we can and should dispense with "Better to regret something you have done than something you haven't" as a policy. But what to put in its place?
I might be tempted by something like "Look before you leap" or, more precisely, "Carefully weigh the advantages and disadvantages before embarking on any significant course of action or inaction, particularly if there are permanent or hard-to-recover consequences" but that ignores the opportunity costs of the consideration and the impossibility of evaluating all possible courses of inaction, it isn't actually good advice in many contexts, and most damningly, isn't snappy.
Maybe I could settle on "It depends. It's complicated."
But even then - sometimes, it's quite simple.
This entry crossposted to http://doug.dreamwidth.org/243672.html, where there are
comment(s) not shown here.