Daniel Pink identifies four types of regret people experience: foundation regrets from neglecting education and health, boldness regrets from avoiding risks, moral regrets from doing wrong, and connection regrets from letting relationships drift. These regrets reveal what actually matters.
The 4 regrets are these: foundation regrets. If only I'd done the work. These are regrets people have about not studying hard enough in university, not taking care of their health, or smoking, or not eating right, or not saving money. Small decisions that accumulate to bad consequences. The second one, huge category: boldness regrets. These are regrets that people have that say, if only I'd taken the chance. They had an opportunity at one point in their life to do something Beyond play it safe, they chose not to do that, and now they regret it. Third category are moral regrets. If only I'd done the right thing. These are people who, at a certain point in their life, could do the right thing or the wrong thing. They do the wrong thing, and it still bugs them, which is in some way— its own way heartening. It shows that I think people want to be good. And the final one are connection regrets. Connection regrets are, if only I'd reached out. And these are regrets about relationships. Where you have a relationship, or you should have had a relationship, and it comes apart, usually through drifts, and you want to reach out, but you don't because you think it's going to be awkward and the other side's not going to care. So it drifts out even more, and then in some cases it ends up being too late. And so these 4 regrets to me reveal, as I said earlier, what makes life worth living.
