Regret is what taught me that living outside of my values is not tenable for me. Regrets about not taking chances have made me braver. Regrets about shaming or blaming people I care about have made me more thoughtful. Sometimes the most uncomfortable learning is the most powerful.

Regret, in the words of Kathryn Schulz in her wonderful 2011 TED talk on the subject, is “the emotion we experience when we think that our present situation could be better or happier if we had done something different in the past.”