Envy and Regret

On the connection between envy and regret…

Yesterday, I came across a post discussing the idea of envy. You can spend as long as you like debating malicious and benign envy, how to turn the former into the latter, and how to make envy drive you towards achievement rather than into depression.

In the comments, I wrote that several years ago I came to a conclusion: whenever I catch myself feeling envious, I immediately run a thought experiment. Would I be prepared to swap lives with that person, permanently and on an all-or-nothing basis? The way it happens in films: tomorrow I wake up in their body with all their achievements, but also all their problems – their age, health, relationships with relatives, childhood trauma, conflicts, ex-wives, powerful enemies and plenty more besides.

Would I do it? Somehow, the answer is no, because I have no idea what hidden pitfalls there are in that person’s life. And there probably are some – even the royal family, as we know, doesn’t live a life of sunshine and roses.

And just like that, the envy fades away…

But what about regret? The internet is full of memes about people tormenting themselves by replaying episodes from the past and cursing themselves for not having “answered like this”, “told them such and such” or “done things differently”. I have never understood the point of revisiting it all. What’s done is done, and no matter how much I think about it, nothing can be changed now.

But what if it could?

In the comments on my recent post about the paradoxes in the Back to the Future trilogy, a thought came up: if I had the chance to return to the past and change something, would I do it? With no guarantee that there would be no side effects of the kind seen in The Butterfly Effect. Would I be willing to risk my present life simply to give someone a different answer?

I’m not imposing my point of view on anyone, merely sharing a trick that works for me. Whenever envy, regret or something similar begins to overwhelm you, just ask yourself whether you would agree to an all-or-nothing swap – with no exceptions, no conditions and no way to undo it…

This thought experiment helps me enormously in life…