BIll Gates, the founder of Microsoft, would seem one who has had everything from life. Yet, presenting his source code biography, recently released for Mondadori, the millionaire expressed a great regret: the divorce from his wife Melinda, signed in 2021, after a 27 -year -old bond. “For me and Melinda the issue of divorce was hell for at least two years,” summarized the tycoon.
Gates is in good company: according to a study that appeared in the scientific periodical Motivation and Emotion, Regulating is the most tested emotion ever. Which is an evil for our tranquility and health: a continuous and acute sense of repentance can lead to physical symptoms such as muscle tension, sleep disorders, appetite changes, headache, In addition to anxiety, depression and poor self -esteem. Not surprisingly, the authors of 23 thousand regrets collected in an online survey by Daniel Pinkscientific popularizer and author of The power of regrets: how to look back pushes us forward (Mondadori), have a single trait in common: all of them feel like idiots.
Occasions missed in the career
Among the reasons why people consulted by Pink regret the past, The main one concerns the end of a bond (of love or friendship or between consanguinei). But the statistics revealed other peculiarities of the repentance: for example, the twenty -year -olds suffer in the same quantity as much the remorse, that is, the wrong things that have become, as the regrets, or the actions that are repeated not to have carried out. As age, however, people advance much more the inaction that the wrong initiative. “Probably the reason is that you think you can correct, at least in part, what has been done,” Pink thinks. “For missing actions, however, there is nothing to do.”
Another element derived from the survey is that The most educated people have more carrient caution than those with lower education. It would seem a contradiction because those who have an advanced qualification in general have more opportunities than others. But in reality it is precisely because you have more chance that, in a hypercompetitive society like ours, the lost opportunities are more regretted. Furthermore, according to the data, a large part of the answers expressed the pain to remain in an unhappy relationship (ascribe it were more women than men) or for not having followed their inclinations, while the moral regrets, linked to the idea of not behaving well, represented only 10 percent of the total. “However, they are the ones who hurt the most and last longer,” comments Pink.
Four categories of sorrows
Similar are the sorrows expressed by hundreds of terminal patients in I would like to have done it – the five biggest regrets (My Life). Ware bronnias, professional caregiver, collected them, with the intention of “inspired people in health to focus on important goals and be happy long before they die”. The regret number one of the dying consists in carrying out excessively adequate to the expectations of others, followed by the displeasure for having dedicated too much time to work and for not having sufficiently expressed their feelings. Even these bitterness, like thousands of others, are however attributable to the four macro categories that according to Pink delimit the sea magnum of the recriminations.
The first categoriesA, called “foundative”, arises from having neglected basic elements in life, such as health or savings. The second type It concerns the non -audacity and includes not having caught an opportunity or supported a passion. The third grouped the regrets of connection, that is, when someone of dear has been lost sight of, e fourth Moral remorse, from theft to betrayal.
The good news, however, is that from an evolutionary point of view all this suffering has meaning a meaning: because, if we know how to glimpse what is hidden under a pungent displeasure, we focus on the things that have more value for us. “Regrets act as photographic negatives, which by contrast highlight the values underlying our actions»Summary Pink. “Therefore When people tell you what they regret, at the same time they reveal what they appreciate. The regret always contains a teaching ». The opposite of a founding remorse therefore emerges the need for stability; where the courage was missed, the desire to grow and learn is glimpsed; Under the worry for the interrupted bonds, the desire for strong affections is hidden and behind moral regret the need to feel respectable people. And in order to be able to get a useful lesson, in spite of positive thought, which avoids painful emotions, Pink believes it is necessary to face the things we repent of.
Failing does not mean being failed
According to a study that appeared in the Motivation and Emotion scientific periodical, regret is the most tested emotion ever. (Getty Images)
But how to deal with an incandescent matter like a still open wound without being overwhelmed? “Often regret and remorse keep us anchored to what we cannot change. Instead, the secret for change is to concentrate on today and take small steps towards a new perspective “Implend Anna Maria Pisanello, psychologist and psychotherapist. “Fortunately, there are some strategies that help to recognize our feelings without judging them, and the acceptance of what is felt constitutes the first step to process them” concludes the specialist.
The first trick he suggested lies in putting in writing what torments ustelling him in the third person. This narrative mode between a distance between the writer and the episodes narrated in order to allow their analysis in an painless way. Another advice is to distinguish incorrect behavior from a value judgment, avoiding for example to interpret having failed as the demonstration of being a failed. And then it would be advisable to deal with kindness, talk to someone (a specialist or friend) of his pain and rationalize past choices: “Are we really sure that we could have done something better?” Pisanello wonders, highlighting how the excess of self -criticism often accompanies depressive tendencies. In the end, To change the way we look at the past choices, it also helps reread our actions to the light not of the “if only” (I had done one thing) But of the “at least”: the divorce has embittered us, but at least we have two adored children; That prestigious job away from home remained a dream, but if nothing else we spent more time with the family.
Bill Gates would seem to have applied just this approach: “As far as divorce was not a good,” he said during a TV apparition, “if I think of our 3 children and the work that Melinda and I managed to do together, I would do everything again”. Made the accounts, with the end of the marriage, Gates went beyond and 69 years old, the gossip linked to the Epstein case was filled, refidented. The chosen one is Paula Hurd, a widow of Oracle Mark Hurd’s CEO. Given the full -bodied inheritance of the ex -husband, in a certain sense she too knows how to treasure the past.
I woman © RESERVED REPRODUCTION