Dr. Karl Pillemer

Well, I actually asked it differently.

I asked them, what can a young person do to avoid getting to your age and having regrets?

How can they avoid it?

First of all, almost everybody said if you get to 90 or 100 with no regrets, you haven't lived a very interesting life, and it means you haven't taken any risks.

So we can come back to that, but that's not an aspiration to completely avoid regrets.

But in general, I asked them about this, and I was ready to hear people talk about big-ticket items like...

a shady business deal or an affair, I was not ready to hear.

And it was so surprising.

I wish I hadn't worried so much.

And people gave many examples.

Here are just a couple I can think of.

One woman said, there were going to be layoffs in my company and we were going to learn in three months.

I could do nothing about it.

There was nothing I could do.

I worried constantly.

And she paused and looked a little wistful and said, I wish I had those three months back.

Somebody else said, I wasn't able to get pregnant.

And I just worried and worried and ruined my life about it.

And then I got pregnant.

People used the same phrase.