Nightwalking Through a Rearview Mirror

On Daniel H. Pink's The Power of Regret

Dan Pink wants you to know there are three types of people in the world.

The first are those who blithely say, “No regrets! None whatsoever;” the second, those who feel cowed and bruised by the life choices they’ve made; and a third group—people who, with clear-eyed determination, face their failures and setbacks, learn from them, and move the hell on.

I’m definitely not in the first camp.

And while there are times I’d admit to scab-picking, I still believe there are good reasons things turned out as they did—and it’s my job to carry on and, well, just do better next time, buster.

So it was with some trepidation that I cracked open Pink’s latest book The Power of Regret. I was concerned I’d immediately sink into a quicksand of despair—the kind of icky feeling that Nightwalking evokes so readily.

I needn’t have been so shy; it was a lively read, and packed with compelling data and useful suggestions.

The Power of Regret by Daniel H. Pink published by Riverhead Books.

The book’s first half covered previous research into the psychology of regret. The data gathered from that research led Pink to a project he himself conducted—the World Regret Survey, a collection of statements about regret from over 15,000 people in 105 countries, quite an impressive feat in itself.

However, halfway through the book Pink makes a surprising shift based on his survey. He’d arrived at a sort of conclusion, that “American regrets span a wide range of domains rather than cluster into any single category,” such as family relationships, coupledom, career and educational paths, any many others. He determined he needed to look more deeply—which totally propelled me into the latter half of the book.

That deeper look surfaced four core regrets: foundational (habits, career and education, health and finances), boldness (the paths we didn’t take, as much as the ones we did), moral (high road or low road choices), and lastly connection (marriage, friendships, family, classmates and work colleagues).

But what particularly interested me was the ol’ “coulda/shoulda,” which centered around discussion of a theory of motivation proposed by Tory Higgins at Columbia University in 1987. Higgins, Pink writes, “argued that we all have an ‘actual self,’ an ‘ideal self,’ and an ‘ought self.’”

Ah-ha, I thought.

That sounds a lot like Daytalking (the actual self, with its “bundle of attributes we currently possess”), Stargazing (the ideal self, “our hopes, wishes, and dreams”), and lastly Nightwalking (the ought self, “the self we believe we should be—our duties, commitments, and responsibilities”).

If that’s the case, some of Nightwalking’s sourness and melancholy could be borne of shame and a sort of “dereliction of duty”—whatever your particular flavor of shame/duty happens to be (mine I suspect is a pungent blend of “eldest son not living up to Type A father’s expectations” like castor oil mixed with the bitter dark chocolate tang of a “young artist’s inadequacy and fears of mediocrity”).

I mean, it’s all worth further exploration, if you ask me. And if you enjoy mud baths.

Pink quotes more recent research in 2018 from Shai Davidai and Thomas Gilovich, who together reached the conclusion that “people regret their failures to live up to their ideal selves more than their failures to live up to their ought selves. Regrets of ‘coulda’ outnumbered regrets of ‘shoulda’ by about three to one.”

What astounded me was how all this plays out emotionally. “Discrepancies between our actual self,” Pink states, “and our ideal self leave us dejected. But discrepancies between our actual self and our ought self make us agitated—and therefore more likely to act” on our emotional reaction.

So … translating this bit into my triad would mean that if Stargazing spent an afternoon with Daytalking, it might feel a little put out by the experience (sometimes a digressive partner isn’t the most helpful partner), whereas Daytalking would probably get a boost and bump from the attendant energy Stargazing unfailingly generates.

But if you put Daytalking and Nightwalking in a room and locked the door—then whichever emerges still alive wins the argument for continued self-discovery?

*shrug*

If I were a betting man (and, well, I am), my money is on Daytalking. But someone should call an ambulance and get poor Nightwalking fixed up because we’ll need it for the next book to review, Susan Cain’s latest, Bittersweet. Nightwalking might be my Caliban, but let’s grant he’s had some eloquent moments:

“Be not afeard, the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not…
...that when I wak’d after long sleep…
I cried to dream again.” —Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 3, Scene 2

This all warrants a closer look, so in future posts I’m hoping to investigate Tory Higgins’ original research and follow up with Davidai, Gilovich, and their research, too.

In the end, Pink’s book is well worth two days out of your life (what it took me to read it). He wraps up with techniques for dealing with the four core regrets—even as far as suggesting you write a “failure résumé.”

Maybe I should wait on that until we all see how long this Substack lasts.

*bad joke, published here, with much regret*

---

The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward by Daniel H. Pink, Riverhead Books, NY, March 1, 2022, US $28.00.