How to live a life without regret

Regret minimization framework

Author

Chandan Karkera
May 6th, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

After reading this article, you’ll learn:

  1. What is the regret minimization framework?

  2. Framework for using it.

  3. A few real - life scenarios where you can use it.

We have just one life on this beautiful earth. I’m sure you’ll feel that, given another chance, you would have gone back to the past and changed something.

Control the butterflies in your stomach and tell your first crush how crazy you are about her.

Instead of being a corporate slave, show the finger to your boss and go on that epic, life - changing trek.

Instead of living forever for an imaginary tomorrow, make life changes and visit places you always wanted to.

But - we cannot go back to the past. And that hurts.

What if I told you, there’s a simple way to avoid such situations?

The purpose of life is to experience things for which you will later experience nostalgia.

@fed_speak

In the mid - 1990’s, Jeff Bezos was deciding whether or not to leave his job on Wall Street to start a company selling books online. He explains his thought process to help him make the decision. He called it the “Regret minimization framework”.

I know it sounds scary but it it’s a simple framework which you can use easily, when faced with a confusing decision.

It works well because when you imagine you’re 80 & look back at this moment, the noise fades away and you are left with the core of the decision.

Do you love her?

Do you love trekking?

Do you love travelling?

You see through the fog and realize what actually matters.

“The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd - The longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world’s existence. All these half-tones of the soul’s consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal sunset of what we are.”

― Fernando Pessoa

I can give you an example where I used this way of thinking, and the choice was very clear. At that time, I was working in a difficult project, and I had just gotten really obsessed with cycling 😀 

I gave advance notice for my leave, and my Manali - Leh cycling trip is one of the most epic, memorable time of my life, yet!

Of course, I heard I was quite close to getting a “bad rating” at work 🙃 

How to implement in your life

Sometimes you just feel like doing something, from deep within. It may be something silly like having ice cream at midnight, or may be a bigger deal, like own the latest iPhone always, or a desire to work at a big company. A good way to think about it:

  • Am I doing this because everyone else is?

  • Will the quality of my life improve?

  • Do I feel strongly about this?

  • Is it a passing attraction?

If you think this way, and use the regret minimization framework, the answer may be obvious.

A word of caution: don’t blindly do something. Make sure you’ve considered all options and are taking a calculated risk.

Let me know your thoughts and if this helps you out.

Further reading:

Reply

or to participate.