Søren Kierkegaard
Regret Comes Either Way
You cannot choose by regret, because it turns up whichever you pick
Either/Or (1843), Part One, 'Diapsalmata'; only the phrase common to the translations is quoted, the rest is our wording
You want both and dread regretting the one you give up. Kierkegaard asks whether "will I regret it?" can decide anything.
What actually happened?
In 1843 Kierkegaard published Either/Or under an editor's invented name. Part One opens with scattered sayings by a young man who believes he has seen through everything. One runs: marry and you will regret it, do not marry and you will regret that too, and whether you marry or not, "you will regret it either way". The same pattern is then run on laughing at the world's follies and on weeping over them. The joke is that the question "will I regret it?" has been taken away from both sides at once.
Regret comes from both sides
Whichever you pick, you will find reasons to wish you had picked the other. So "will I regret it?" cannot tell the two apart. It does not measure which is better; it measures how afraid you are.
Two job offers: take the first and you miss the pay of the second; take the second and you miss the colleagues of the first.
Fearing regret is asking for a guarantee
Choosing by what you will not regret is asking for insurance before you act, and nobody sells it. What you can ask beforehand is different: which one am I willing to answer for, and can I really live without the other?
You rent the south-facing flat and it is noisy; you rent the quiet one and it is dark. The question is which you can stand, not which has no fault.
He does not choose for you
Even the title gives no answer; Either/Or only sets both ends side by side. The judge who writes Part Two says, roughly, that what matters is not only which you pick but the seriousness with which you pick it. A choice starts to count once it is made.
Once you decide, put away the file on the other option instead of opening it every night.
How do I use it today?
Where you are: You want both, you have compared them for weeks, and every comparison ends at "I will regret either one".
Ask first: With "afraid of regret" crossed out, which one am I more willing to answer for? Write it down, and once you pick, act.
Where it goes wrong: Using it to say the two are the same and you may as well toss a coin. He does not say they are equal. He says regret cannot rank them, so rank them by what each costs you in money, time and what you give up.
Lines to keep
Regret comes from both sides; it cannot rank them.
Fearing regret is wanting a guarantee before you act.
Same situation, other people are asking
Every option makes sense and I can't choose.They're all good ideas. That's exactly the problem.I'm climbing and it isn't the thing I wanted.What I want to do and what I should do are two different things.Too many paths · all 12 questions →If this one named what you are going through,
send it to someone who needs it, or keep it somewhere you will find it again.