I was recently talking with someone about Death Is But a Dream, written by hospice physician Dr. Christopher Kerr, who has spent years researching the experiences of people approaching death.
One of the things that struck me was how differently we imagine dying compared to what many people actually experience. Many tend to think that when people reach the end of their lives, they’ll be filled with regrets about what they did or didn’t do, and all the things they wish they’d done differently.
Kerr’s research suggests otherwise. Many dying patients experience dreams and visions involving loved ones who have already died. These experiences often bring a profound sense of peace and connection. And many of the concerns that seemed so important during their lives begin to fall away.
From my spiritual perspective, I think what’s happening is that the physical and spiritual worlds are beginning to merge. As people become aware of a larger reality, their perspective on the life they’re leaving begins to change. At the end of life, what seems to matter most is love.
Which raises an interesting question. If we can let go of so much of what we regret as we approach death, why do we have such a hard time letting go of it while we’re alive?
Why Regret Is So Tough To Let Go Of
I tend to lump regret into the same category as guilt and shame. They’re emotions that can cause a considerable amount of unnecessary suffering, especially when we keep carrying them long after they’ve served whatever purpose they might have had to nudge us toward self-correction.
That’s because most of us do our best to be a “good person.” But what does that actually mean? Where did we get our ideas about what makes someone good or bad?
Much of what we believe about ourselves comes from what we were taught as children, reinforced by education, culture, and religion. We integrate these ideas so thoroughly that we rarely stop to question whether we actually agree with them. The identity of “good person” becomes something we feel we must protect. When we do something that goes against that definition, we feel guilty or ashamed. Or we look back and wish we’d done something differently, and we feel regret.
Even the words themselves carry a lot of emotional baggage.
Think about the difference between saying, “I feel badly about how I handled that,” and “I’m ashamed of myself.”
The first acknowledges something we wish we’d done differently. The second can become a judgment about who we are.
The problem is that once we start judging ourselves, it’s easy to get stuck.
What If You Can’t Make It Right?
I’m thinking of someone I know who cared for an aging parent who was difficult to live with. There was a great deal of love between them, but there was also considerable stress. At times, the caregiver became resentful and didn’t always behave as kindly as they wish they had.
After the parent died, they were left with some pretty intense regret.
This person is emotionally aware. They understand the circumstances and know they were doing their best under difficult conditions. But they still feel badly about some of the things they said and did. And now there’s no way to go back and change any of it.
This is where trying to rationalize an emotion can get tricky. Understanding why we behaved a certain way doesn’t necessarily make the sadness go away.
Sometimes regret just isn’t solvable in the way we want it to be.
We can apologize in our hearts. We can write a letter to someone who’s gone, talk to them in meditation, or send loving thoughts their way. We can ask for forgiveness. And we may still feel sad about what happened. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Feeling sadness about what cannot be changed is clean. Because it’s sadness that just is. We understand that we can’t magically make it disappear. So we have to learn to live with that sadness.
But self-punishment is different because it’s a loop that keeps feeding itself. This is where the sadness stays tangled with regret. The trick is to find a way to stop beating ourselves up over something we can no longer change.
We’re All Works in Progress
When regret comes up, I think there are two questions we ask ourselves. And only one has an answer.
Could I have done something differently?
The problem with this question is that it lets us get stuck in revisionist history, replaying and replaying. But in reality, the outcome can’t change because we can’t change the past.
The only useful question is: Is there anything I can do about it now?
If there’s something you can do, do it. If an apology is called for, apologize. If you recognize a behavior you don’t like in yourself, work on changing it.
And if there’s nothing you can do, then you have to find a way to accept that. Often the only useful next step is simply to stop feeding the thought. Don’t argue with it, analyze it further, or try to feel better about it. Just refuse to continue the conversation.
We learn through experience. Sometimes we know intellectually that we shouldn’t do something, but we haven’t yet developed the emotional maturity or self-control to behave differently. And sometimes we simply make mistakes.
Looking back with the understanding we have today and condemning ourselves for what we did years ago accomplishes nothing. Of course we’d handle it differently now. We’ve had years of additional experience.
But we can’t go back and give that earlier version of ourselves everything we’ve learned since.
The person who regrets how they treated their parent may eventually find themselves caring for someone else. This time, they may recognize their resentment sooner. They may be more patient. They may handle things differently because of what they learned.
They can’t undo what happened with their parent, but they can make use of what that experience taught them.
And isn’t that really the point of learning?
When the Movie Ends
I’ve often used the analogy of our physical lives as movies playing on a screen.
While the movie is playing, we’re so caught up in the story that we forget there’s a screen. We identify with the characters and their successes and failures. The screen is always there, but stays largely invisible to us because our attention is completely absorbed in the movie.
In this analogy, the movie is our physical life, and the screen represents the larger spiritual reality that supports it. The problem is that while the movie is still playing, we keep trying to rewrite earlier scenes.
As we approach death, the movie begins to end. The credits start to roll. And once the movie stops, we can see the screen again.
From my perspective, this helps explain why so many people nearing death experience a profound shift in what’s important to them. The identity they’ve spent a lifetime constructing and defending begins to fall away. There’s nothing left to prove. No more roles to play or expectations to meet. The need to rewrite earlier scenes drops away because the character who needed to be “good” or “successful” is no longer the point.
The movie is over. There are no more acts. No more lines. No more mistakes to be made. And in that release, there can be a tremendous sense of peace.
Most often what remains—the only thing that matters—is love.
Why Wait Until the End?
I think there’s something we can learn from all of this while we’re still very much involved in the movie.
We may never completely free ourselves from certain regrets. Some things will always make us sad when we remember them. Some opportunities are gone forever. Some relationships can’t be repaired.
But we can learn to live with that sadness without continuing to punish ourselves.
If we’ve genuinely recognized a mistake and are determined to do better going forward, I believe we deserve to forgive ourselves, regardless of what we’ve done.
That doesn’t mean pretending something didn’t happen or excusing our behavior. It means acknowledging what happened and accepting that we can’t go back and redo it.
We’re all works in progress. We’re going to make mistakes. Hopefully, we’ll learn from them and be less inclined to make the same ones again.
The problem with regret is that it keeps us focused on a past we can’t change—no matter how many times we replay it in our minds.
So when regret comes knocking, take an honest look at whatever is troubling you. See if there’s something you can do about it. If there is, do it.
And if there isn’t, forgive yourself as best you can and walk on.
Because the only thing we can change is how we live from this moment forward.
And really, that’s all any of us can do.