The emotion becomes regret only when she does the work of boarding the time machine, negating the past, and contrasting her grim actual present with what might have been. Comparison lives at regret’s core.

What we need is to develop a mature, functional relationship with time—with the regrets and horrors of the past and the anxieties associated with the future—not cut it off from our lives. Whether we like it or not, we have a past, and we have a future; they are both integral parts of us right now.

All that time, I had been obsessed about longevity for the wrong reason. I was not thinking about a long, healthy life ahead; instead, I was mourning the past. I was trapped by the pain that my past had caused and was continuing to cause. I wanted to live longer, I think, only because deep down I knew I needed more runway to try to make things righ