Regret, Shame

By nature, I’m a person who regrets a lot. When I make a mistake, I whip myself and kick the blankets a lot. I also feel a lot of shame about things I’ve done wrong in front of other people.

Meeting people who, unlike me, are naturally cheerful, I wondered if I was looking at myself too negatively…

Listening to D’s story at today’s gathering, a new thought occurred to me. The story D shared was this: “I looked back on when I grew the most while struggling hard at work. And strangely, it was always when I felt shame. … Since then, I no longer feel shame as a negative emotion.”

The point was that they use shame as nourishment for growth, and it seemed like there was a shift in thinking there.

As someone who loves the essays Murakami wrote, my favorite line of his was, “If you did it, don’t regret it. If you’re going to regret it, don’t do it.” … but now I think there might also be a way to look at regret in a positive light.

Since it’s impossible to never regret anything at all, I should look at myself in a way that lets me turn regret into something positive.