by Susie Rider

Created on: March 23, 2009   Last Updated: March 25, 2009

Can a person cruise through life without regrets? I wonder: does one even want to be the sort of person who can?

Katherine Hepburn once said, "I have many regrets, and I'm sure everyone does. The stupid things you do, you regret...if you have any sense and you don't regret them, maybe you're stupid." I agree with Ms. Hepburn. As mere mortals, it's a cosmic "given" that we will all make mistakes in our lives - so doing some "stupid things" that one regrets are inevitable. Acknowledgment of one's stupid (self-destructive) behavior feels bad - this is regret. However, regret can also be an honest and useful emotion: many of our truly regrettable moments are the result of own personal "quirks" and issues reacting to a specific external situation. Regret, like guilt, is a negative feeling that possibly can be parlayed into a positive result eventually, i.e., breaking self-defeating behavior patterns. So although I believe regret is inevitable, one can learn to live life in a way that produces fewer regrets - ironically, sometimes it's the experience of real regret itself that can lead to more functional behavior.

For example, let's look at a "real-life" case of loss, regret and redemption - the case of my commitment phobe friend whom (for privacy reasons) I'll call "M:"

I met "M" when he was in his early thirties, at which point he'd never married but had had a long string of relationships, almost all of which he had ended. He was, and still is, an excellent, successful commercial photographer and a perfectionist. As a friend, M. is a lot fun, totally dependable, thoughtful, loyal, and helpful. So imagine my growing bemusement and concern as I watched his romantic "slash-and-burn" "modus operendi" over the years: all of his relationships fit a pattern, becoming intense quickly - within a month they became full-blown sexual, quasi-"shackin' up" relationships. The women all were smitten - some were obsessive over him (I witnessed their devotion first-hand - I was often embarrassed for the woman). Yet even at the outset of each relationship, he would voice his reservations about the woman in a cold way. Then, a couple of months later, he'd suddenly break it off. He always emerged emotionally unscathed, but dissatisfied.

Finally he met a woman whom I could instantly see had "got to him": she challenged him, was smart, and independent. After dating for six months, he told me that he was in love with her. However, rather bizarrely, I thought, before the end of the seventh

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