The Loop of Regrets

At the end, there’s nothing left but regret. This is the final output of every decision.

Mahmud Darwish once wrote, “Every road leads me to you, even what I chose to forget you.” If I were Darwish, I would write, “Every road leads me to regrets. There’s only a destination, even I don’t know.”
Thanks to the Almighty, I am not Darwish.

We usually start writing from beginning to end. But, today, I am going to write this backward. What is it called? The bottom-up approach.

The previous step of “regret” is overthinking, analyzing the decision I made and trying to find an answer to a question. For example, we think our decision is a binary decision, YES or NO (even though mostly it is in real life). I found two cases for this:

• If my decision (in the previous state) was YES, would I be okay, or would I be the way I am right now if I had made the decision “NO”?
• If my decision (in the previous state) was NO, would it be something else if I had made the decision “YES”?

For the second case, I always find the answer is YES.

For the first case, there are several things I usually find:

• In a very few cases, I find the answer is YES. There’s nothing that changes at all. I would be at the same place if I had made the decision NO.
• In most cases, I find I somehow messed up things. I took the wrong micro-steps, I changed some part of my decision, but still, the main goal is the same. Unfortunately, the output is not exactly what I expected or even close to my goal.

Every case leads me to the next step called “Regret.”

It makes me think: what is actually the problem with this step? Is the problem in this step or the previous one? I don’t have the answer to the question. Now, we need to go a step back.

It is the step where I make a decision. The step is somewhat similar to the previous one. I have to analyze, research, get ideas from others and get opinions from others I believe. Then, make a decision based on this. I do thought experiments, try to imagine the only successful output, what and how would it be…

So, we can also divide and conquer the problem of this state.

• Case 1: I can come to a decision by analyzing and researching on my own and also using my intuition.
  • Question I ask myself: “Do I have enough experience to sum up to a decision on this matter?”
    • “Shouldn’t I ask others at least?”
      • Maybe “yes.”
        • Go to the other case.
      • Maybe “no.”
        • Let’s take a decision, think for some days…
          • Research, analyze, thinking… (Time goes on. When there are no days remaining, I jump to the next step.)
            • Take the decision and act according to it. I can’t double-think.
              But most of the time, the above case doesn’t work. I think I somehow get others’ opinions.
            • Sometimes others give an opinion without asking.
              • I stop thinking, get frozen and go to the other case.

• Case 2: I can ask for opinions from others.
  • “Do others’ choices align with mine?”, “Does it cause any problems later?”, “Would they be real?”
    • I ask and I start blindly following their instructions or choices. Why do I do this?
      • Do I need validation? Or so that I can look like others, or I am not abnormal?
        • I get frozen, I can’t decide anything, I can’t see the other options.
          • So, I accept the decision and I don’t know why. (Maybe, if I oppose, it sounds like conflict.)
      • Should I say to them that I need time to think?
        • Would they feel rejected or angry or something else? Am I becoming too much?
          • I get frozen, I can’t decide anything, I can’t see the other options.
            • So, I accept the decision and I don’t know why. (Maybe, if I oppose, it sounds like conflict.)

From the above analysis, we can conclude that most of the answers are: “So, I accept the decision, and I don’t know why.” I can’t rethink because I get frozen.

There, we might find the problem in this step. The step is: “I get frozen, I can’t decide anything, I can’t see the other options.”

What should I do here? Stop listening to others and thinking? No, even I should stop thinking. I just need to take some breaths, right? But, actually, can all of our problems give us that amount of time? That’s another big question. It was our second step.

Then, what is the first step? Selecting the problem.

Is it the correct time to consider things a problem? Should I wait a bit? Or is it a problem at all?
What made me consider it a problem? By the eyes of others, or what would others see if I don’t?
Is it a problem because it is influenced by others, because they have it or because I am at the stage of something that I am not?
Is it somewhere I want to see myself, hence I should consider solving it?
Is it something I need, or am I just wasting time?

The formulation means that, to address something as a problem, I have to go through a bunch of questions. But still, I maybe can’t go through each and every one. Some questions influence me to consider it a problem.

So, what does it actually mean then? I failed to detect whether something is a problem or not? Meaning that thinking about the problem is a problem itself? Is it a self-loop? There is no answer at all.

Now, think about the conclusion. What does it actually mean?
There is regret in everything, because the world is not perfect. So, how would my solution be perfect? Or maybe it is normal. Murphy’s law, “If something can go wrong, it will go wrong.”

Another question to add is, how long does this regret take? Until another regret comes out.
Then, all of the problems are half-solved, all of my regrets are half-regrets?

Is there any solution to get rid of this? Who knows.

It reminds me of a part of “Mohabbat aur Zaroorat” by Ashfaq Hussain,

“…..Main ek duniya mein hoon
Aur doosri duniya ke khwaab aate hain aankhon mein
Adhoori chaahatein meri
Adhoori daastaan meri
Mere jazbe adhoore hain
Meri khwaahish ke paimaane adhoore hain
Mohabbat ke mere honthon pe afsaane adhoore hain
Adhoore-pan ki ek duniya mere chaaron taraf hai, …..”