regrets
2006-06-29 17:01:13.584526+02 by Dan Lyke 0 comments
A few weeks ago Mark Hershberger noted that "we might desire things that don't make us happy", using bicycling and eating a donut as examples. Since I've been biking and have been known to eat the occasional donut, this struck a chord, and I've been meaning to write something on the notion, but yesterday Rafe had a link to Clive Thompson's summary of a study by some Columbia University researchers that claims that in the long run we regret virtue more than vice. Repenting Hyperopia (PDF) might be worth a look, although I'm heads-down and won't be reading anything extended for a few days.
But it does take me back to an old answering machine message I used to have that quoted Helen Rowland, from A Guide To Men back in 1922:
The follies which a man regrets the most in his life are those which he didn't commit when he had the opportunity.