How to Rein Regret

 

We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.

— Sean Covey

Like his six previous books, Dan Pink's latest, The Power of Regret, bundles decades of social-science research into a subject to draw a general conclusion.

In this case, the subject is remorse, the inescapable, rearview-mirror feeling that I could have done better. And Pink's conclusion is that regret, if tamed, is a powerful propellent to self-improvement. 

I highly recommend the 200-page book.

Pink shows over and over that he has a knack for finding obscure research papers and mining clear conclusions from them, while leading his reader along a complex train of thought quickly and gracefully.

The heart of the book is Part Two, where Pink reveals the four "core regrets," which he has unearthed not from others' findings, but through his own original research among 4,500 subjects—the single largest study of regret ever conducted. 

The core regrets are not what you'd guess.

First, there are foundation regrets, what Pink describes as "failures of foresight and conscientiousness." Most of these have to do with ignoring our education, health, and savings; in other words, with goofing off and living large.

Second, there are boldness regrets, past choices to "play it safe." Most of these regrets have to do with career, romance, and travel. Boldness regrets dwell on the "roads not taken." 

Third, there are moral regrets, big and small lapses in the way you treated lovers, children, friends, enemies, employers—even animals. We tend to agonize over these.

Fourth, there are connection regrets, which form the largest category of regrets. "They arise." Pink writes, "from relationships that have come undone or that remain incomplete." He tidily calls these regrets "rifts and drifts."

Pink's formula for taming regrets (Part Three of the book) comprises seven distinct elements:

• Apologize to those you harmed
• Find a silver lining in your lapse
• Admit your faux paus to others
• Develop compassion for yourself
• Accept frailty and move on
• Keep things in perspective
• Decide what you'll do differently in the future

Taking these actions, Pink says, will turn your regrets from morbid emotions into powerful goads to a better you.

My one complaint about The Power of Regret concerns an omission: Pink never once refers to "Step 9" of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Alcoholics in recovery are emperors of regrets. In order to kick the habit, Step 9 demands that they "make direct amends wherever possible, except when to do so would injure others."

By looking into AA's Step 9, Pink might have saved himself a lot of effort.

Folks have been there before.

Magical Thinking

Magical thinking is typical of children up to five,
after which reality begins to predominate.

— American Psychological Association Dictionary

Every day I encounter magical thinking.

It makes me cringe.

Here are three examples I encountered in only the past 24 hours:

• An executive coach told a young realtor, "If you just go to networking events, you'll be a millionaire." That's malarkey. 
  
  
• A keynote speaker at a conference told businesspeople, "When followers love what you love to do, the money will follow." That's also bull.
  
  
• A woman angry about last week's Supreme Court decision Tweeted, "Since women have no contractual rights, I need no longer pay my student loans." That's foolishness.

Our society is hip deep in magical thinking—the kind that ruins people's lives (remember when Trump said household bleach could cure you of Covid?).

We've always been surrounded by magical thinking—witness the 1990s' Beanie Babies Investment Craze—but things seem to have worsened of recent.

Magical thinking—the belief that your thoughts, words, or actions can shape events—assumes a causal link between the subjective and objective.

Of course, sometimes your words and actions do shape events. (Just tell your boss his hair plugs are obvious; or cross the street without looking.)

But most of the time events have a mind of their own.

Since the advent of science in the 16th century, we've tended to associate magical thinking with infants, religions, and "primitive" cultures. 

But magical thinking pervades popular culture, too.

Freud blamed magical thinking on the Id, which seeks favorable outcomes without regard to the "reality principle."

Reality aside, maybe magical thinking isn't magic at all, but only an instance of wishful thinking—the error in judgement known to philosophers as the "ought-is fallacy."

The ought-is fallacy assumes that the way you want things to be is the way they are, no matter the evidence.

Examples of the ought-is fallacy include the belief in angels and the healing power of crystals; the belief that trickle-down economics works; the belief that Trump actually won the 2020 election; the belief that hard work pays off; and the belief that no one is evil.

The next time you're confronted by someone's wishful thinking, ask him, do you believe in magic?

Time Tunnel

How are we free, under these circumstances?
How can any of us be free?

— Roxane Gay

If you're over 55, you know time travel is possible, because you saw it every week on The Time Tunnel.

If you pick up your TV Guide, you'll learn that in this week's episode a gang of right-wing lunatics wearing black robes seized control of the Time Tunnel and have set our destination for the year 1800.

So you can say goodbye to women's rights—including the vote. To gay and interracial marriage. And to civil rights, equal rights, privacy rights, workers' rights, and the emancipation. 

Those liberties all stemmed from Liberals' delusions.

Say hello to women in their place at the workbench; to gays in the closet; to workers working 70-hour weeks; and to Blacks back out in the cotton fields.

Writing yesterday in The New York Times, opinion columnist Roxane Gay praised the unnamed individual who leaked the Supreme Court's draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade.

"Whoever leaked it wanted people to understand the fate awaiting us."

She's absolutely right about that: women are about to lose "bodily autonomy."

But—being young—Gay does not understand that this is only the beginning of the ride, and that five crazed justices have seized the dials which control the Time Tunnel.

Fasten your seatbelts, folks.

"I do not know where this retraction of civil rights will end," Gay writes, "but I do know it will go down as a milestone in a decades-long conservative campaign to force a country of 330 million people to abide by a bigoted set of ideologies."

I do know where the retraction of civil rights will end: the year 1800, the last year White American men of wealth called the shots.

In those men's eyes—as in the five reactionary justices' eyes—America went decidedly downhill after that.

Most Americans today have their heads in the sand, to put it nicely.

They're ignorant and naive, and don't know why we enjoy the many civil liberties we do.

They don't know that Lincoln won the presidency in 1860 by persuading votes that rich White men, if unchecked, could—and would—eventually enslave everyone.

They don't know that female "shirtwaist workers" in 1900 dodged bullets and beatings to form a union.

They don't know who Elizabeth Cady Stanton was, or that Jim Crow wasn't a brand of whiskey. 

They don't know what the Stonewall Riots were; or that, before 1973, a coat hanger was the customary means for aborting a fetus.

But they're about to learn. 

We all are.

We're about to relive all those events and more on the next amazing episode of The Time Tunnel.

POSTCRIPT: Okay, I hear you saying, "He's cra-cra." But, trust me, the Constitution is no match for five right-wing lunatics bent on turning back the clock. The justices can—and will—overturn not only prior Supreme Court decisions, but Constitutional amendments as well. Under the 5th Amendment, they hold that power. They will surely use it.

Political World

We live in a political world.

— Bob Dylan

The notion behind this post came to me a week ago, but I felt no urgency to pursue the idea until yesterday, when POLITICO announced that the Supreme Court has voted to strike down Roe v. Wade.

My notion is simple: even though we can’t escape the latter, painting and politics don’t mix.

My proof of that statement is my difficulty selling Judging Amy, a still life I painted in October 2020.

It commands a lot of attention at art fairs, but no one has ever asked about its price (like all my small paintings, $140).

Despite it’s stopping power, I just cannot sell it.

Convincing arguments in favor of political painting most often claim that when a painter depicts a political truth—as Picasso did in Guernica—it’s truthier than the same political truth as told by, say, a journalist.

The late historian Howard Zinn made this argument.

“Artists lend a kind of spiritual element to reality which enhances the truth,” he told Resonance Magazine in 2003.

“There are huge numbers of people in the world whose lives are lives of sheer misery, sickness and violence. In order to change that you need to have artists who will be conscious, who will use their art in such a way that it helps to transform society. Art may not be a blunt instrument, but it will have a kind of poetic effect.”

But just as convincing are the arguments that disfavor political painting.

They most often point to the self-indulgent nature of it: political paintings display a vacuity that mirrors politics itself.

Art critic Peter Schjeldahl made that argument in 2006.

“My problem with political art is not that it’s bad art necessarily, but that it is terrible politics,” he told Guernica Magazine.

“What are we talking about with a political artist? We’re talking about a closeted person with minimum contact with reality—who has trouble tying his fucking shoes! And he’s supposed to be political? A bus driver has a better perspective on things. Artists are completely indulgent.”

As an example, Schjeldahl pointed to Velázquez, who painted many political paintings.

Velázquez only managed to avoid ugly self-indulgence because he was “the greatest painter who ever lived.”

In contrast, his contemporary Rembrandt, “the second greatest painter who ever lived,” painted captivating pictures aimed solidly at his middle-class patrons.

“He invented the bourgeois art market,” Schjeldahl said.

I must admit I have to side with Schjeldahl.

After the unsalable nature of Judging Amy, I need to remind myself: if I ever feel like climbing on my soapbox again, I’ll stop.

Maybe I’ll paint it, instead.

It worked for Warhol, after all.

Above: Judging Amy by Robert Francis James. Oil on canvas board. 10 x 8 inches. Brillo Box by Andy Warhol. Oil on wood. 17 x 17 x 14 inches.

Nostalgia

Nostalgia is a seductive liar.

— George Ball

I belong to several Facebook groups that relish the past. 

"Abandoned Homes America," for example.

"Paperback, Pulp and Book Collectors Anonymous."

"The Golden Age of Hollywood."

These groups attract fellow aficionados: people avid about old houses, books and films.

But they also attract whiny weirdos who can't handle the here and now.

"As many of us get older, we might hearken back to simpler times," blogger Michael Kwan write in Beyond the Rhetoric. 

"We may look upon the present with a certain level of disdain. We might admonish 'kids these days' for ruining everything. But, are we all just falling victim to the golden age fallacy?"

Nostalgia, also known as the "golden age fallacy," insists we'd be more content in times gone by.

Nostalgia drives malcontents and misérables to look backwards for happiness.

Nostalgia a disease of longing. 

It's so crippling that philosopher Karl Jaspers blamed the most heinous sorts of crimes—murder, arson, and child molestation—on it.

Not every contemporary psychiatrist believes nostalgia is a mental disorder.

But I do.

That's why I'm disturbed by the relentless Facebook posts like, "We have too much today an overindulged society, as kids we ate what was on the table" and "Bring back Aunt Jemima, screw the woke crowd!" (both verbatim quotes taken from "The Golden Age of Hollywood").

I see those crabby statements and think, with Jaspers, "There's a potential child molester."

Michael Kwan calls wistful reminiscence a "flaw in the romantic imagination of people who find it difficult to cope with the present."

I think it's a much deeper—and darker—flaw.

A flaw in character.