Comments on: Regrettable Prudence

By: Scott Wood

Scott Wood — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 04:22:19 +0000

It's worth noting, of course, that people who feel these regrets (and I count myself among them) are not really in a position to know what would have happened in their lives had they partied more and studied less.

By: alan

alan — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 22:22:56 +0000

isn't there a selection bias here? the people who have real bad regrets might be too dead to talk about it, eh?

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 18:51:37 +0000

Seneca says somewhere (one of his letters, I think) that everything should be done in moderation, including over-indulgence. That's not quite the same thing the article seems to be on to, but an important truth along the same lines, I think.

By: Dain

Dain — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 18:27:46 +0000

Nah, stay in America and have a fling with a fellow seminar student at a classical liberal foundation function . Cheaper, and might very well be from Europe anyway.

By: GilM

GilM — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 18:23:05 +0000

Yeah, that's what I meant by the “probabilities of outcomes”. I suspect that it's pretty common to overestimate the probabilities of good outcomes and underestimate the probabilities of bad outcomes when we consider alternative histories.

By: jfcote87

jfcote87 — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 18:13:05 +0000

More than just mistaken costs and benefits, its very easy to create unreal alternatives. I would have loved to travel to Europe and have a fling with S____ over my sophomore winter break. Neither were real alternatives, but the regrets remain.

By: GilM

GilM — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 17:37:34 +0000

I think measuring regrets about the past tells us more about the sorts of things that people tend to regret than it does about the sorts of things people would be better off choosing. People aren't necessarily good at estimating the costs and benefits and probabilities of outomes in alternative histories in an unbiased manner.

But, I agree with the conclusion that having a planner deciding for everyone would be even worse.

By: Kevin B. O'Reilly

Kevin B. O'Reilly — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 17:01:41 +0000

I don't want to live in a world designed to eliminate regrets. The emotion is indivisible from freedom.

By: Agree with Study

Agree with Study — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:31:03 +0000

My greatest regret concerning college was that I didn't party enough. Everyone always went out, while I always said I'd join them “next week, as soon as I get over this organic chemistry to physics or something else hurdle.” By the time I graduated, I wondered where the four years went. I'm only in my late 20s, and am a pretty happy med student, but I feel a bit like I squandered my youth. And I'll continue squandering it until I finish the end of my residency in my early to mid- thirities. My advice to anyone considering a career that requires a lot of formal education: think about how short life is, and whether or not you could be happy in a job that requires less training, yet provide similar fulfillment (PA or nurse practitioner for med students).