Dealing With Regret

(mouse clicking) (gentle music) Headspace Studios. (gentle music) Hello, friends. It's Rosie. Welcome to Radio Headspace, and to Monday. I read a study once that said most of us regret nearly a third of decisions we make in a week's time, and a big part of regret is self-blame over making the wrong choice, whether it was doing something that you now believe you shouldn't have done, or not doing something that you think you should have. I wonder if that's true for most of us. How do we cope with that on the daily? With that in mind, I wanna explore how we can cope with feelings of regret and even learn to change our perspective about so-called mistakes we've made in the past. I guess the biggest regret for me was my attempt to steal a cop car when I was a teenager. It was an afternoon. I got out of school early, and one of my friends that I was with had ditched her sixth period. So we're just walking to the local park, and there were two vehicles there, a red Honda Prelude and a cop car, black and white, doors open, both cars are running, and apparently the police officers in that car had gotten out to pursue somebody on foot, and everybody at the park is just kinda standing around these cars being nosy teenagers, and one of the persons that we were with said, "Hey, Rosie, you should go get into the car." And I thought that was a good idea, and so I walk over to the cop car, and I sit in the driver's seat, and I'm like pushing buttons, just thinking that I was the coolest person there. Not five seconds later, six police vehicles pull up right behind me. They get out of their cars, guns are drawn. I mean, it's like a scene. They searched me. I got cuffed, and I got sent to the local police department to get booked for attempted grand theft auto of a police vehicle. As I was walking into this holding cell, the booking officer is just asking me questions. He's asking my name, he's asking for my parents. The minute he finished taking my information down, with the slyest smile, he said, "Welcome to a life in the system." And I just remember in that moment really feeling like this was it. This was gonna be the rest of my life. In that same moment, I knew that I wasn't going to allow anyone to put me in a box. I felt that shift of I need to make better decisions for myself, and I will do whatever it takes. That's what helped me turn my life around. So I think it's really interesting, right? When we're thinking about regret, we may think an incident was totally life-shattering. I really believe that with every experience like this, there is a sliver of hope and an opportunity to find new meaning. So...