If you’re over the age of 18, you have regrets. And researchers over at Northwestern University’s Kellog School of Management have proved it. They studied 370 people, ages 19 to 103, and guess what the biggest regret was? No, it wasn’t eating that fourth piece of chocolate cake. People were found to regret decisions they made in personal relationships than any other life event.
Approximately 18 percent reported romantic regrets. Following close behind were regrets about: family (16 percent), education (13 percent), career (12 percent), finance (10 percent), and parenting (9 percent).
Not surprisingly, women were more likely to experience regrets about family and romance – about 44 percent, compared to 19 percent of men’s. This makes sense because as psychologist Neal Roese explains, “Women are typically charged with the role of maintaining and preserving relationships, so when things do go wrong, it’s very spontaneous for women to think, ‘I should have done it some other way…it’s how men and women are raised in this culture.’”
So, while women are sitting around ruminating about lost loves, what are men up mulling over? Apparently, education and work. The study discovered 34 percent of men lamented about the choices they made in regard to bringing home the bacon, compared to 26 percent of women.
All that said, researchers found that Americans, in general, have trouble getting over everything they wished they told a loved one or the things they did that they wished they could take back. What’s up with that? Well, according to psychologist Joseph Ferrari, “When people reflect on the past, which is what regret does, we ruminate about the things that didn’t go well but we don’t savor the good times. We are much more impacted by the negative stuff.”
Wouldn’t it be nice to live a life regret-free? I thought so, but Roese disagrees, “Regret is an essential part of the human experience. You should listen to the lessons your regrets tell you, which is quite often how you could have done things differently or how you could have changed things.”
Ahh, to be so practical.
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