Bill, you deleted comments of mine. That's censoring, right? I'm still showing up as 'subscribed' but not receiving in my mailbox. I'm paid up till the end of July '25. I need a full refund or need to receive daily posts in my mailbox thru the end of July PLUS not be censored &/or deleted.
I have never deleted any comments. I don't know what your email is — Substack does not allow me to correlate comments with the email of the person behind it. Send me a note at bill@understandably.com.
Actually let me amend that. I did comments many months ago, when some people signed up just to spam everything. But that was a special case — not the situation here at all. Anyway send me a note and when I get back from the gym I'll take a look. Thanks.
As usual an interesting article. What comes to mind is the old adage, "in a multitude of counselors there is safety". In high school I entered into the Science Fair. My experiment was a failure and I was bummed. My science teacher told me I shouldn't be disappointed because now I knew and everyone who visited my booth knew that this approach doesn't work. Eliminating wrong approaches is a good thing because we are now closer to the right approach. I think the key to this "No regrets" question is to be as circumspect as humanly possible. If after circumspection you still make the wrong choice you can feel OK that you did your best to get all the facts prior to making what ended up as the wrong choice.
Bryan…you made the best decision you could with the information you had at the time. I have to remind myself of that every time I second guess a decision I made. And like your cool teacher said, everyone learned from your attempt!
I think I made the decision that has guided my life for many years now in the eighth grade. My decision then was to live my life with no “What ifs” or “If onlys”. I have no idea why that particular decision was made then but it has served me pretty well. Looking back, could I have handled some situations differently? For sure but that is past; over and done. Like words you can’t unsay, it’s almost impossible to undo an action. You can, however, make amends if doing so is part of going on with your life unencumbered by regret. I think you tend to do certain things at different stages in your life depending on the values you were raised(or not)with. With each decision you make you learn something. It may not be much and it may seem insignificant at the time but whatever it turns out to be, it becomes a part of you that may end up being useful in your future. Each day presents us with a clean slate if we allow it to be that is. Waking up and finding our old emotional baggage still sitting there for us to haul around would be a real bummer. Keep in mind too that not making a decision is making a decision. Be prepared to live with it.
A lot of times, you won’t know whether the decisions you make are the right ones for several months. And really, a failure at one thing will just lead you down a different path, so do you really ever lose? I have made many decisions I regret, but then if I hadn’t made them, I would not be the person I am today, so were they wrong decisions?
Not looking forward to a month full of political advertising but then at least we should be done with it for a while. You would think that political parties and other groups would know by now that attack ads and negative ads don’t do anything but annoy the people subjected to seeing them. Stop saying how terrible the other guy is and tell me what you are going to do that is different.
This is the first post I read. I found some great discussion points - where are our responsibilities' boundaries especially resonated l with me.
Also how do we define "regret"? If accepting being "wrong" or looking foolish at times is okay (.... Not referring to certain chat group...) we may be freer to take chances & make greater decisions towards greater creations.
My... Less than fine moments:
+ (19y.o.)Asked a lady her due date & she wasn't pregnant (IN MY DEFENSE she kept rubbing & cradling her tummy shopping in the kids' clothes section... My attorney was not present at the time)
+ (22y.o. me) Laughed inappropriately, uncontrolably, in front of intellectuals I'd just met 10min prior (they'd just told me the Segway inventor had died riding too close to a cliff's edge...)
+ (12yo me) Went with my crush to a fair & "let's go on a bouncy slide"... I trip at the top... I fall from the top of said bouncy slide, miss all of said bouncy slide, FACE PLANT the bottom of said bouncy slide. In an Eddie the Eagle ski jump pose. AND I let my legs go opposite ways to look like a break dance pose.
I've just bore my soul's most cringe-til-the-ground-swallows-me moments.
HOWEVER
The people whose feelings I've hurt, or whose time I made feel unappreciated & worse still when I was vindictive towards those who hurt me - these choices I confess during therapy to ask honestly: where did I go "wrong"?
Nature goes wrong ALL the time.
I mean... A platypus? A PLATYPUS?!
It LEARNS from those ... "errors", puts them to use & is better for it.
This is that's why I ask how we define regret? Can we help people to stop living with them?
So what I want to do when my face goes hot, my memories intrude & force me to retreat under my blanket: I want to learn. (I stay away from bouncy slides)
Bill, you deleted comments of mine. That's censoring, right? I'm still showing up as 'subscribed' but not receiving in my mailbox. I'm paid up till the end of July '25. I need a full refund or need to receive daily posts in my mailbox thru the end of July PLUS not be censored &/or deleted.
I have never deleted any comments. I don't know what your email is — Substack does not allow me to correlate comments with the email of the person behind it. Send me a note at bill@understandably.com.
Actually let me amend that. I did comments many months ago, when some people signed up just to spam everything. But that was a special case — not the situation here at all. Anyway send me a note and when I get back from the gym I'll take a look. Thanks.
my apologies - I was looking at the wrong post...
However, I'm still not receiving any daily emails so I'll send you a note.
Thank you.
Conspiracy theories abound! I thought you said you posted your last comment last week???
Btw, it is easy to em Bill directly.
As usual an interesting article. What comes to mind is the old adage, "in a multitude of counselors there is safety". In high school I entered into the Science Fair. My experiment was a failure and I was bummed. My science teacher told me I shouldn't be disappointed because now I knew and everyone who visited my booth knew that this approach doesn't work. Eliminating wrong approaches is a good thing because we are now closer to the right approach. I think the key to this "No regrets" question is to be as circumspect as humanly possible. If after circumspection you still make the wrong choice you can feel OK that you did your best to get all the facts prior to making what ended up as the wrong choice.
Bryan…you made the best decision you could with the information you had at the time. I have to remind myself of that every time I second guess a decision I made. And like your cool teacher said, everyone learned from your attempt!
I think I made the decision that has guided my life for many years now in the eighth grade. My decision then was to live my life with no “What ifs” or “If onlys”. I have no idea why that particular decision was made then but it has served me pretty well. Looking back, could I have handled some situations differently? For sure but that is past; over and done. Like words you can’t unsay, it’s almost impossible to undo an action. You can, however, make amends if doing so is part of going on with your life unencumbered by regret. I think you tend to do certain things at different stages in your life depending on the values you were raised(or not)with. With each decision you make you learn something. It may not be much and it may seem insignificant at the time but whatever it turns out to be, it becomes a part of you that may end up being useful in your future. Each day presents us with a clean slate if we allow it to be that is. Waking up and finding our old emotional baggage still sitting there for us to haul around would be a real bummer. Keep in mind too that not making a decision is making a decision. Be prepared to live with it.
A lot of times, you won’t know whether the decisions you make are the right ones for several months. And really, a failure at one thing will just lead you down a different path, so do you really ever lose? I have made many decisions I regret, but then if I hadn’t made them, I would not be the person I am today, so were they wrong decisions?
Not looking forward to a month full of political advertising but then at least we should be done with it for a while. You would think that political parties and other groups would know by now that attack ads and negative ads don’t do anything but annoy the people subjected to seeing them. Stop saying how terrible the other guy is and tell me what you are going to do that is different.
This is the first post I read. I found some great discussion points - where are our responsibilities' boundaries especially resonated l with me.
Also how do we define "regret"? If accepting being "wrong" or looking foolish at times is okay (.... Not referring to certain chat group...) we may be freer to take chances & make greater decisions towards greater creations.
My... Less than fine moments:
+ (19y.o.)Asked a lady her due date & she wasn't pregnant (IN MY DEFENSE she kept rubbing & cradling her tummy shopping in the kids' clothes section... My attorney was not present at the time)
+ (22y.o. me) Laughed inappropriately, uncontrolably, in front of intellectuals I'd just met 10min prior (they'd just told me the Segway inventor had died riding too close to a cliff's edge...)
+ (12yo me) Went with my crush to a fair & "let's go on a bouncy slide"... I trip at the top... I fall from the top of said bouncy slide, miss all of said bouncy slide, FACE PLANT the bottom of said bouncy slide. In an Eddie the Eagle ski jump pose. AND I let my legs go opposite ways to look like a break dance pose.
I've just bore my soul's most cringe-til-the-ground-swallows-me moments.
HOWEVER
The people whose feelings I've hurt, or whose time I made feel unappreciated & worse still when I was vindictive towards those who hurt me - these choices I confess during therapy to ask honestly: where did I go "wrong"?
Nature goes wrong ALL the time.
I mean... A platypus? A PLATYPUS?!
It LEARNS from those ... "errors", puts them to use & is better for it.
This is that's why I ask how we define regret? Can we help people to stop living with them?
So what I want to do when my face goes hot, my memories intrude & force me to retreat under my blanket: I want to learn. (I stay away from bouncy slides)
I refuse to regret.