4 kinds of regret - and what they teach you about yourself - Daniel H. Pink (re-release)

You're listening to TED Talks Daily where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. For the next week and a half we are sharing a handful of talks, conversations and podcast episodes from the TED archive that spark some inspiration in all of us since we're thinking about the end of 2025 and the intentions and practices we hope to bring into our lives in 2026 so we hope they inspire you too.

欢迎收听TED每日播客，我们每天为你带来新观点，激发你的好奇心。我是主持人伊莉丝·胡。在接下来的一周半里，我们将分享一系列来自TED档案的演讲、对话和播客节目，希望能为我们所有人带来一些启发，因为我们正在思考2025年的结束以及我们希望带入2026年的意愿和习惯，希望它们也能激励你。

For many of us, reflection is a huge part of the end of the year and with reflection can come some regret. It's one of our most powerful emotions and also maybe one of the most misunderstood. In this conversation from 2022, author Daniel H. Pink speaks with TED curator Whitney Pennington Rogers about his work gathering more than 16,000 stories of regret from people in more than 100 countries. In an effort to better understand this emotion, they discussed the patterns that emerge from his research, which he says boil down to four core regrets, and discuss steps to transform your own regrets in order to create the life you've always wanted to live.

对我们许多人来说，反思是年终的重要组成部分，而反思有时会带来遗憾。它是我们最强烈的情感之一，或许也是最容易被误解的情感之一。在这段2022年的对话中，作家丹尼尔·H·平克与TED策展人惠特尼·彭宁顿·罗杰斯谈论了他的工作——他收集了来自100多个国家、超过16000人的遗憾故事。为了更好地理解这种情感，他们讨论了研究中浮现出的模式。他表示这些模式可归结为四种核心遗憾，并讨论了如何转变自己的遗憾，从而创造你一直想要的生活。

Let's talk about regret. It is, to my mind, our most misunderstood emotion. And so I decided to spend a couple of years studying it. And one of the things that I did is I went back and I looked at about fifty years of social science on regret. And here's what it tells you. I'll save you the trouble of reading a half century of social science. The research tells us that everybody has regrets. Regrets make us human. Truly, the only people without regrets are five year olds, people with brain damage and sociopaths. The rest of us, we have regrets and if we treat our regrets right, and that's a big if. But there are ways to do it.

我们来谈谈遗憾。在我看来，它是我们最被误解的情感。因此我决定花几年时间研究它。我做的一件事是回顾了过去大约五十年关于遗憾的社会科学研究。以下是研究告诉我们的。我为你省去阅读半个世纪社会科学的麻烦。研究告诉我们，人人都有遗憾。遗憾使我们成为人。事实上，唯一没有遗憾的人是五岁儿童、脑损伤者和反社会者。我们其他人都有遗憾，而如果我们能正确对待遗憾——这是个很大的假设——但确实有方法可循。

Regrets can actually make us better. They can improve our decision making skills, improve our negotiation skills, make us better strategists, make us better problem solvers, enhance our sense of meaning if we treat them right. And the good news is that there's a systematic way to do that. But I want to take just a few minutes to tell you about another aspect of regret that I think is really, really just super interesting.

遗憾实际上能让我们变得更好。如果处理得当，它们可以提高我们的决策能力、谈判技巧，让我们成为更好的战略家和问题解决者，并增强我们的意义感。好消息是，有一套系统的方法可以做到这一点。但我想花几分钟时间告诉你关于遗憾的另一个方面，我认为这真的非常非常有趣。

As part of the research here, I decided to ask people for their regrets, and to my surprise, I ended up collecting about sixteen thousand regrets from people in 105 countries. It's an extraordinary trove, and what I realized when I went through this incredible database of human longing and aspiration is that around the world, and there's very little national difference here, people kept expressing the same four regrets around the world. There are the same four regrets that keep coming up over and over and over again.

作为这项研究的一部分，我决定请人们分享他们的遗憾。令我惊讶的是，我最终收集了来自105个国家的人们约一万六千个遗憾故事。这是一个非凡的宝库。当我浏览这个关于人类渴望与抱负的不可思议的数据库时，我意识到在世界各地——国家间的差异微乎其微——人们不断表达着同样的四种遗憾。同样的四种遗憾一遍又一遍地反复出现。

So what I want to do is just quickly tell you about these four core regrets, because I think they reveal something incredibly important and interesting. So the four core regrets that I uncovered: number one, what I call foundation regrets. Foundation regrets. These are people who regret things like this: not saving enough money, which would be like, you know, financial regret; not taking care of their health and not eating right, health regret. But they're the same. Those kinds of regrets are about making choices that didn't allow you to have some stability, a stable platform for their life.

所以我想做的就是快速告诉你们这四种核心遗憾，因为我认为它们揭示了一些极其重要且有趣的东西。我发现的四种核心遗憾是：第一，我称之为基础遗憾。基础遗憾。这是指那些后悔诸如：没有存足够的钱（可以说是财务遗憾）；没有照顾好健康、没有合理饮食（健康遗憾）的人。但它们是相通的。这类遗憾是关于做出了那些未能让你获得某种稳定性、一个稳定人生平台的选择。

I have a lot of people who regret not working hard enough in school. A lot of people who regret... I got a lot of regrets about not saving money. And it's the kind of thing. It reminds me a little bit of Aesop's fable of the ant and the grasshopper where earlier in their life they acted like a grasshopper instead of the ant. And now it's catching up with them. So foundation regrets sound like this: "If only..." and that's the catchphrase of regret. "If only I had done the work."

很多人后悔在学校没有足够努力。很多人后悔……我收到了很多关于没存钱的遗憾。这种事情让我想起了伊索寓言里的蚂蚁和蚱蜢，他们在人生早期像蚱蜢而不是蚂蚁那样行事，而现在后果找上门了。所以基础遗憾听起来像这样："要是当初……"——这是遗憾的常用语。"要是我当初努力了就好了。"

Second category. I love this category. It's fascinating. Boldness regrets. Boldness regrets. I have hundreds of regrets around the world that go like this: "X years ago there was a man/woman whom I really liked. I wanted to ask him or her out on a date but I was too scared to do it and I've regretted it ever since." I also have hundreds of regrets by people who said, "Oh, I've always wanted to start a business, but I never had the guts to do that." People who said, "Oh, I always like, I wish I'd spoken up more. I wish I had said something and asserted myself."

第二类。我喜欢这一类。它很吸引人。勇气遗憾。勇气遗憾。我在世界各地收集了数百个这样的遗憾："X年前，有一个我真正喜欢的男人/女人。我想约他/她出去，但我太害怕了，至今仍然后悔。" 我还有数百个来自人们的遗憾，他们说："哦，我一直想创业，但从没鼓起勇气去做。" 还有人说："哦，我总是希望自己能多发言。我希望我当时说了点什么，坚持了自己。"

These are what I, as I said before, what I call boldness regrets and we get to a juncture in our life and we have a choice. We can play it safe or we can take the chance. And what I found is overwhelmingly, people regret not taking the chance. Even people who took the chance and it didn't work out, don't really have many regrets about that. It's the people who didn't take the chance. So this is boldness regrets. Boldness regrets sound like this: "If only I had taken the chance."

这些就是我之前所说的勇气遗憾。我们来到人生的一个十字路口，我们有一个选择：要么求稳，要么抓住机会。我发现绝大多数人都后悔没有抓住机会。即使是那些抓住了机会但没成功的人，对此也并没有太多遗憾。后悔的是那些没有抓住机会的人。所以这就是勇气遗憾。勇气遗憾听起来像这样："要是我当初抓住了机会就好了。"

Third category, Moral regrets. Very interesting, very interesting category. These are people who, again, a lot of these regrets begin at a juncture. You're at a juncture. You can do the right thing, or you can do the wrong thing. People do the wrong thing and they regret it.

第三类，道德遗憾。非常有趣，非常有趣的类别。这些人，同样，许多这类遗憾始于一个十字路口。你处于一个十字路口。你可以做正确的事，也可以做错误的事。人们做了错误的事，然后他们后悔了。

I mean, one of the most amazing, one of the ones that I just really stuck with me, I'm gonna try to pull it up here is this one here, this woman, she's a 71 year old woman in New Jersey. "When I was a kid, my mother would send me to a small local store for a few items. I frequently would steal a candy bar when the grocer wasn't looking. That's bothered me for about sixty years." So a 71 year old woman in New Jersey. For sixty years, she's been bugged by this moral breach.

我的意思是，最令人惊讶、让我印象最深刻的一个例子，我试着把它找出来，就是这个，这位女士，她是新泽西州一位71岁的妇女。"我小时候，妈妈常让我去一家小杂货店买些东西。我经常趁店主不注意偷一块糖果。这件事困扰了我大约六十年。" 所以，新泽西州这位71岁的女士，六十年来一直因为这个道德过失而烦恼。

And so Moral regrets. We have people regretting bullying. We have people regretting marital infidelity, all kinds of things. Moral regrets sound like this: "If only I'd done the right thing." And finally, our fourth category, or what I call connection regrets. Connection regrets are like this. You have a relationship or ought to have a relationship. And it doesn't matter what the relationship is: kids, parents, siblings, cousins, friends, colleagues. But you have a relationship or ought to have had a relationship and the relationship comes apart.

所以道德遗憾。有人后悔欺凌他人。有人后悔婚内不忠，各种事情。道德遗憾听起来像这样："要是我当初做了正确的事就好了。" 最后，我们的第四类，我称之为关系遗憾。关系遗憾是这样的：你有一段关系，或者本该有一段关系。这段关系是什么不重要：孩子、父母、兄弟姐妹、表亲、朋友、同事。但你有一段关系，或者本该有一段关系，而这段关系破裂了。

And what's interesting is that what these 16,000 people were telling me is that the way these relationships come apart is often not very dramatic, not very dramatic at all, they often come apart by drifting apart rather than through some kind of explosive rift. And what happens is that people don't want to reach out because they say it's going to be awkward to reach out and the other side's not going to care.

有趣的是，这一万六千人所告诉我的是，这些关系破裂的方式通常并不戏剧化，一点也不戏剧化，它们往往是因为疏远而分开，而不是因为某种爆炸性的裂痕。问题是，人们不愿意主动联系，因为他们觉得主动联系会很尴尬，而且对方也不会在乎。

One of the lessons that I learned from this book for myself is always reach out. So that's what connection regrets are. "If only I'd reached out." And so over and over and over again, we see these same regrets: foundation regrets, "If only I'd done the work." Boldness regrets, "If only I'd taken the chance." Moral regrets, "If only I'd done the right thing." And connection regrets, "If only I'd reached out."

我从这本书中为自己学到的一点是：永远要主动联系。这就是关系遗憾。"要是我当初主动联系就好了。" 于是我们一遍又一遍地看到同样的遗憾：基础遗憾——"要是我当初努力了就好了。" 勇气遗憾——"要是我当初抓住了机会就好了。" 道德遗憾——"要是我当初做了正确的事就好了。" 关系遗憾——"要是我当初主动联系就好了。"

And when we look at these regrets, so that's interesting in itself. But what I realized is that these four core regrets operate as a kind of photographic negative of the good life. Because if we understand what people regret the most, we actually can understand what they value the most. And each of these regrets, to my mind, reveal something fundamental about humanity and about what we need. We need stability. Nobody wants to have an unstable life.

当我们审视这些遗憾时，这本身就很有趣。但我意识到，这四种核心遗憾就像是美好生活的底片。因为如果我们理解人们最遗憾什么，我们实际上就能理解他们最看重什么。在我看来，每一种遗憾都揭示了关于人性和我们所需的一些基本东西。我们需要稳定。没人想过不稳定的生活。

We want a chance to learn and grow and do something. We recognize that we are not here forever and we want to do something and try something and at least you feel the exhilaration of being bold. Moral regrets? I think most of us, almost all of us, want to do the right thing. At some level, these moral regrets are very heartening. The idea that people are bugged for years, decades by these moral breaches earlier in their life. I think most of us want to do the right thing.

我们想要一个学习、成长和做点事情的机会。我们认识到自己不会永远在这里，我们想做点什么，尝试点什么，至少能感受到勇敢带来的兴奋感。道德遗憾？我想我们大多数人，几乎所有人，都想做正确的事。在某种程度上，这些道德遗憾非常鼓舞人心。人们会因早年生活中的这些道德过失而困扰多年甚至数十年。我想我们大多数人都想做正确的事。

And then connection regrets. We want love, not love only in the romantic sense, but love in the broader sense of connection and relationship and affinity with other people. And so in a weird way, this negative emotion of regret points the way to a good life by studying regret. We know what constitutes a good life: a life of stability, a life where you have a chance to take a few risks, a life where you're doing the right thing and a life where you have people who love you and whom you love.

然后是关系遗憾。我们渴望爱，不仅仅是浪漫意义上的爱，而是更广泛意义上的联系、关系以及与他人的亲近。所以以一种奇怪的方式，遗憾这种负面情感通过对其的研究，为我们指明了通往美好生活的道路。我们知道什么构成了美好生活：一种稳定的生活，一种你有机会冒几次险的生活，一种你做正确事情的生活，一种有人爱你、你也爱他们的生活。

And so to me I started out saying oh boy, is this going, is his book going to be a downer, studying regret? And it ended up being very uplifting and so so those are the four core regrets. Regret points us to the good life. And so, um, I hope that you'll begin to reckon with your own regrets because I think they're going to give you direction to a life well lived.

所以对我来说，开始时我说，天哪，研究遗憾，这本书会不会很压抑？结果它却非常令人振奋。这就是四种核心遗憾。遗憾指引我们走向美好生活。所以，嗯，我希望你开始正视自己的遗憾，因为我认为它们会为你指明过上美好生活的方向。

Well, thank you for that, Dan and, and I, I'm also really appreciative. What you, what you shared there. So I guess just first Dan and you mentioned, you know, I think this this big takeaway about how thinking about regret can help us figure out what are the recipe, what is the recipe for the good life? I guess what has been your biggest takeaway from from doing this work? Be beyond that.

嗯，谢谢你，丹，我也非常感激。你所分享的内容。我想首先，丹，你提到，我想关于思考遗憾如何能帮助我们找到美好生活的配方，这是一个很大的收获。我想知道，除了这一点，你做这项工作最大的收获是什么？

I found it really interesting how much people want to talk about this and that's what got me on it in the first place. That is I had, I had an experience in my life where one of my kids graduated from college and that sort of marker in my life made me start thinking about what regrets that I had and I just mentioned it to a few people and I found them like leaning into the conversation.

我发现人们多么想谈论这个话题，这真的很有趣，这也是我最初开始研究的原因。我的人生有过一次经历，我的一个孩子大学毕业了，这个人生里程碑让我开始思考自己有什么遗憾。我向几个人提到了这一点，发现他们都很投入地进行对话。

So I was, I was amazed at how much people want to talk about this and how much this taboo of like "oh I don't have any regrets" is so ridiculous. I mean it's absurd and that if we actually start talking about it we're going to be better off. For me personally I think that the biggest takeaway was the connection regrets because I had so many people who had the same story where they had a friendship, some kind of relationship and it comes apart and they want to reach out and they say "oh no, it's gonna be really awkward and the other side's not gonna care" and we're so wrong about that.

所以我很惊讶人们这么想谈论这个话题，而"哦，我没有任何遗憾"这种禁忌是如此荒谬。我的意思是这很荒谬，如果我们真的开始谈论它，我们会过得更好。就我个人而言，我认为最大的收获是关于关系遗憾的，因为太多人有相同的故事：他们有过一段友谊或某种关系，后来疏远了，他们想主动联系，但说"哦不，那会很尴尬，对方也不会在乎"，而我们对此错得离谱。

It's not awkward and the other side almost all appreciates it. And so for me, I guess the takeaway is if I'm at a juncture in my life where I'm thinking, "Should I reach out or should I not reach out?" I've answered the question that the answer to that question, at that juncture, if you reach that juncture, the answer is always reach out, you know, and especially coming out of a time like this, Whitney, we need that sense of connection and so the ethic of always reaching out to me is, is one of the best life lessons that I've learned.

那并不尴尬，而且对方几乎都会感激。所以对我来说，我想收获就是，如果我处于人生的一个十字路口，正在想："我该不该主动联系？"我已经回答了这个问题：在那个十字路口，如果你到了那个地步，答案永远是主动联系。特别是在经历了这样一个时期之后，惠特尼，我们需要那种联系感，所以"永远主动联系"这个准则，是我学到的最好的人生经验之一。

Well, we're going to do something a little interesting next, Dan, which is to have some members share their own regrets. And so I want to, I guess, hand things over to you right now so that you can bring in our first member and we can explore more what this process of thinking about, making our regrets help us live a good life actually looks like, sure.

好的，接下来我们要做点有趣的事，丹，就是请一些成员分享他们自己的遗憾。所以我想，现在就交给你吧，你可以请出我们的第一位成员，我们可以更多地探讨一下，这个通过思考、利用我们的遗憾来帮助我们过上好日子的过程实际上是什么样子。

Sure. So let's bring on Lily. I don't want it to sound like a magic act, but Lily and I don't know each other. Um, we, we haven't gone through this before. But what I want to try to do is actually, hearing the stories of people's regrets, I think is super interesting and revealing. And I just want we're gonna hear Lily's regret and we're gonna talk through what science says might be some appropriate responses to that, so Lily, welcome.

当然。那么有请莉莉。我不想这听起来像魔术表演，但莉莉和我并不认识。嗯，我们以前没经历过这个。但我想尝试的是，听听人们的遗憾故事，我认为这非常有趣和有启发性。我们就来听听莉莉的遗憾，然后探讨一下科学认为可能有哪些适当的应对方式。那么，莉莉，欢迎。

Thank you. Hi.

谢谢。嗨。

And where? And tell us where you are.

你在哪里？告诉我们你在哪儿。

Um, I'm currently in Brooklyn, New York.

嗯，我目前在纽约布鲁克林。

Brooklyn is in the house here at TED membership, so Lily, tell us your regret.

布鲁克林在TED会员现场。那么莉莉，告诉我们你的遗憾。

Yeah. So, um, my regret that I want to share was, is that for most of my young adult life from kindergarten, kindergarten, really straight through high school is that I was painfully, painfully shy with really low self confidence. You know, as I was thinking about this I was remembering and there were times where I just like wanted to close my eyes and like be invisible. And I think that you know my...

好的。嗯，我想分享的遗憾是，在我青少年时期的大部分时间里，从幼儿园，真的是从幼儿园一直到高中，我都极度、极度害羞，自信心非常低。你知道，当我回想这件事时，我记得有些时候我就想闭上眼睛，好像隐形一样。我想你知道我的……

Like I didn't really come into my own until I got to college where found a really great group of friends really like was confident in expressing myself and you know, just being myself. And I think that, you know, my regret is that I just really wish that I had taken a little bit more effort to, to build my confidence to, to fight this a little bit more because I worry about what opportunities I might have missed. Um, so ever since then I feel like I try to counteract it now. Um, and if ever I meet someone who might be going through, especially if they're younger, like going through the same thing I did. Um, I try to, you know make them feel seen and try to empathize with how they're how they're feeling. So that's kind of a takeaway I guess from that regret.

就好像我直到大学才真正找到自我，在那里我交到了一群很棒的朋友，真正能够自信地表达自己，做自己。我想，你知道，我的遗憾就是我真的很希望我当时能多花点努力去建立自信，更多地与这种状态抗争，因为我担心自己可能错过了哪些机会。嗯，所以从那时起，我感觉我现在试着去弥补。嗯，如果我遇到有人可能正在经历，特别是如果他们更年轻，经历着和我一样的事情，嗯，我会试着让他们感到被看见，试着共情他们的感受。所以我想这是我从那个遗憾中得到的一点收获。

So is this a regret that's still with you? I think it sounds to me like you might have, like sort of begun the process of resolving it a little bit.

所以这个遗憾现在还伴随着你吗？听起来你好像已经，有点开始解决这个过程了。

Absolutely. But I think that, you know, even just, you know, prepping for this, I start to think about like, you know, there could have been more things I could have done, you know, if I just like put myself a little bit out there, if I didn't just try to hide so much.

当然。但我觉得，你知道，即使只是在为这次分享做准备时，我也开始想，你知道，我本可以做更多的事，如果我能稍微让自己走出去一点，如果我不是那么努力地躲藏。

Okay, all right. So, so let me, this is, this is fascinating Lily. And I have to say I have this database of regrets and, and you can search the database and if I were to search the database for the phrase "speak up", "spoken up", I would get huge huge numbers of people. It is one of the most common regrets is if people regret not speaking up.

好的，明白了。那么，让我说，这很有趣，莉莉。我必须说我有一个遗憾数据库，你可以搜索数据库，如果我搜索"发言"、"说出来"这些词，我会得到海量的人数。这是最常见的遗憾之一，人们后悔没有说出来。

The important thing about our regrets that comes from the science is this, um, it's how we deal with them so we can take that regret and say you know what, it doesn't matter that I feel terrible and I have this regret because yeah I'm just going to ignore it all right? That's like the blithe "no regrets" philosophy. That's a bad idea, right? The other way at it is to say, oh my god, I have all these regrets. It's so terrible I'm gonna wallow in them. That's a bad idea too.

关于遗憾，科学告诉我们的重要一点是，我们如何处理它们。我们可以拿着这个遗憾说，你知道吗，我感觉很糟、有这个遗憾都没关系，因为我就要忽略它，对吧？这就像是那种轻松愉快的"无悔"哲学。那是个坏主意，对吧？另一种方式是说，天哪，我有这么多遗憾。太可怕了，我要沉溺其中。那也是个坏主意。

What we want to do, and I think that you've already done a really brilliant job of it, is use these regrets as signals, signals for our thinking. What is it teaching me? And so there are a few things in the research that give us some clues about what to do. So one of them is this: is how we... so we start with like sort of reframing the regret and what we think about and how we think about it in ourselves.

我们想要做的，而且我认为你已经做得很出色了，就是把这些遗憾当作信号，我们思考的信号。它在教我什么？研究中有几件事为我们提供了一些关于该怎么做的线索。其中之一是：我们如何……我们从重构遗憾以及我们如何看待它、如何在内心看待它开始。

Um, so do you think that you are the only person with this kind of regret?

嗯，那么你认为你是唯一有这种遗憾的人吗？

Not at all.

完全不是。

All right. So, so one of the things that we can do with our regrets is treat ourselves with self compassion, all right? Not boost our self esteem, that's sometimes dangerous. Not rip ourselves down with self criticism, but actually say, treat ourselves with kindness rather than contempt and recognize that what we're going through is part of the shared human experience. That's one thing. The second thing that we can do is we can disclose our regret.

好的。所以，我们可以对遗憾做的一件事就是以自我同情对待自己，好吗？不是提升自尊（那有时是危险的），也不是用自我批评贬低自己，而是实际上，以仁慈而非轻蔑对待自己，并认识到我们所经历的是人类共同体验的一部分。这是一点。我们能做的第二件事是倾诉我们的遗憾。

There are a few things that are interesting about disclosure. There's something amazing. Why 16,000 people were willing to share their regrets with me. I mean, like what's going on there? And the reason is, is that when we disclose our regrets, we relieve some of the burden. That's one thing. The second thing that we do is that when we actually talk about our regrets, converting these kind of blobby, mental abstractions into concrete words, whether it's spoken or writing, defangs them; it begins the sense-making process.

关于倾诉，有几件有趣的事。有些事很神奇。为什么一万六千人愿意向我分享他们的遗憾？我是说，这是怎么回事？原因是，当我们倾诉遗憾时，我们减轻了一些负担。这是一点。我们做的第二件事是，当我们真正谈论我们的遗憾时，将这些模糊的、思维中的抽象概念转化为具体的词语（无论是说还是写），就会拔掉它们的毒牙；这开始了理解的过程。

And the other thing about disclosure, which is a dirty little secret that I'll reveal to all of you that comes out in the research very clearly is that when we disclose our vulnerabilities and our weaknesses, people don't like us less. They actually like us more because they empathize with us. They respect our courage. And the final thing is to actually try to extract a lesson from it, to use this regret.

关于倾诉的另一件事，这是一个我透露给你们的小秘密，研究很清楚地表明：当我们暴露自己的脆弱和弱点时，人们不会因此减少对我们的喜爱。他们实际上更喜欢我们，因为他们与我们共情，他们尊重我们的勇气。最后一件事是真正尝试从中吸取教训，利用这个遗憾。

So what? What would you say, Lily, is the lesson that you've learned from this regret.

那么？莉莉，你会说你从这次遗憾中学到了什么教训？

I think that what would have gone wrong if I, if I, if I, you know, were more open about expressing myself, like people might discover I'm a little weird or they might think that maybe I'm nice and hopefully maybe a little funny. So, um, so I think like maybe that's one thing that jumps to mind. Like what? What could have gone wrong?

我想，如果我更开放地表达自己，可能会出什么问题呢？比如人们可能会发现我有点奇怪，或者他们可能会觉得我人挺好，也许还希望我有点幽默感。所以，嗯，我想这可能是我脑子里跳出来的一个想法。比如？能出什么错呢？

So what's a lesson that you have a plot going forward taking this regret? Okay, so you've sort of treated yourself with kindness rather than contempt. You've disclosed it to all these people. Here, you've begun the sense making process by talking about it and writing about it. What's a lesson? What's a lesson that you can extract from this?

那么，带着这个遗憾向前走，你打算吸取什么教训？好了，你已经对自己仁慈而非轻蔑了。你已经向这么多人倾诉了。通过谈论和书写，你已经开始了理解的过程。有什么教训？你能从中提取出什么教训？

Not sure? Well.

不确定？嗯。

Can I well then then then let me tell you, I think that's a lie. I think that the lesson is to next time, speak up. Next time when you are at a juncture. Should I speak up or not? Think about this. Think about this and speak up, and so are you have, do you have any kind of work meetings or anything coming on where you're going to be confronted with this?

那么，让我告诉你，我认为那是谎言。我认为教训是下次要发言。下次当你处于十字路口时，我该不该说出来？想想这个。想想这个，然后说出来。那么，你有没有什么工作会议或其他场合，会遇到这种情况？

Yeah. And, and I think that that happens all the time. Like, you know, I have an idea, oh, but someone starts talking and then like you just sort of, you know, fade back into the background. And, and that's something I want to counteract more often because more often than not, you know that idea is a contribution and why am I hesitating so much, yeah.

是的。而且，我觉得这种事一直在发生。比如，你知道，我有个想法，哦，但是有人开始说话了，然后你就有点，你知道，退回到背景里去了。这，这是我想更经常去对抗的事情，因为大多数时候，你知道那个想法是有贡献的，而我为什么那么犹豫呢，是的。

So you have a lesson. The lesson is speak up. So how about the next meeting you're in? When you have something to say, don't hesitate and speak up.

所以你得到了一个教训。教训是说出来。那么下次你开会时怎么样？当你有话要说时，不要犹豫，说出来。

I'll do it.

我会的。

Okay, but here's the thing. What I like about this is you've just made a promise to 300 people. So you're on the hook. I'm on the hook? So this is it. So Lily has this regret. She's looking backwards saying ah, if only I'd spoken up and instead of beating herself up, she is divulging it. She's extracting a lesson from it and she's applying and she's taking that and applying it to some next interaction. So this is what we do. This is how again looking backward can move you forward.

好的，但问题是这样的。我喜欢这一点是因为你刚刚向三百人做出了承诺。所以你得说到做到。我？所以就是这样。莉莉有这个遗憾。她回顾过去说，啊，要是我当初说出来就好了，她没有苛责自己，而是把它说了出来。她从中吸取了教训，并且她正在将之应用于下一次互动。这就是我们要做的。这就是回顾如何能推动你向前。

So so Lily, thanks for that. I really, really appreciate your sharing that with us. And I want you to report back that you did speak up.

所以，莉莉，谢谢你。我真的很感激你与我们分享这些。我希望你回来报告说你确实说出来了。

I will. Thank you.

我会的。谢谢。

Thanks, Lily.

谢谢，莉莉。

Well, we have a question here from Claudia who asked, "Can you speak to the issue of painful life regrets? Major opportunities lost? Do you have some advice on how to avoid being paralyzed by fear or further regret?"

好的，这里有一个来自克劳迪娅的问题，她问："你能谈谈关于痛苦的人生遗憾吗？失去的重大机会？对于如何避免被恐惧或进一步的遗憾所麻痹，你有什么建议吗？"

Yeah, um, it's interesting that Claudia said, "opportunities lost." And let me pick up on that phrase right here, because one of the things they saw on my own, my own research, because I also did a huge survey of the American population where we surveyed a representative sample of 4489 Americans about regret and how it worked.

是的，嗯，克劳迪娅说"失去的机会"，这很有趣。让我就这个短语说几句，因为我自己的研究中看到的一件事是——我也对全美人口做了一个大规模调查，我们调查了4489名具有代表性的美国人关于遗憾以及它是如何运作的。

But one of the things you see widespread is that there are in the architecture of regret, there are often two kinds of regrets: one of regrets of action and one of regrets of inaction, regrets about what we did, regrets about what we didn't do. And overwhelmingly inaction regrets predominate. And that's what an opportunity lost is.

但你普遍看到的一件事是，在遗憾的结构中，通常有两种遗憾：行动遗憾和不行动遗憾，对我们做了的事的遗憾，对我们没做的事的遗憾。而不行动的遗憾占绝大多数。那就是失去的机会。

With action regrets, we can try to undo them. We can make amends. We can look for the silver lining and we can reduce the stink. For inaction regrets, it is harder. And so the key here and the opportunity lost is to sort of reduce the level of abstraction and say what are you going to do next time? Okay, not an abstraction of like, "oh, I'm gonna be more bold." It's like, what are you going to do next time? This is what we're talking about with Lily. What are you going to do next time?

对于行动遗憾，我们可以尝试撤销。我们可以弥补。我们可以寻找一线希望，我们可以减轻其恶劣影响。对于不行动遗憾，则更难。所以这里的关键和失去的机会在于降低抽象程度，说清楚下次你要做什么。好吧，不是"哦，我会更大胆"这样的抽象说法。而是，下次你要做什么？这就是我们和莉莉讨论的。下次你要做什么？

All regrets begin at the juncture. You can go this way, or you can go that way. And so for Claudia, I would say the next time you're at this juncture, take the opportunity. Play it safe? Stop. Think about your regret and make the decision there.

所有遗憾都始于十字路口。你可以走这条路，也可以走那条路。所以对克劳迪娅，我会说下次你在这个十字路口时，抓住机会。求稳？停下。想想你的遗憾，然后在那里做出决定。

Or another thing that you could do, I'll give you another sort of decision making heuristic. Two of them. In fact, when you're at that juncture, Claudia, next time, go forward five years. And this is called self-distancing. Be Claudia five years from now, look back on Claudia today. What decision do you want? What decision does Claudia of 2027 want Claudia 2022 to make? It's very clear.

或者你可以做另一件事，我再给你一个决策启发法。其实是两个。实际上，克劳迪娅，下次当你处在那个十字路口时，向前走五年。这叫做自我疏离。成为五年后的克劳迪娅，回顾今天的克劳迪娅。你想要什么决定？2027年的克劳迪娅希望2022年的克劳迪娅做出什么决定？这很清楚。

Or the best decision making heuristic there is: you're at a juncture. What would you tell your best friend to do? When you ask people that, when they're trying to make a decision, say, "what would you tell your best friend to do?" Everybody always knows. So, so remember, the main thing though is don't let it bog you down. Use it as a tool for thinking, not as a tool for wallowing, not as a tool for ignoring, but as a tool for thinking.

或者最好的决策启发法是：你处于一个十字路口。你会告诉你最好的朋友怎么做？当你问人们这个问题时，当他们试图做决定时，说"你会告诉你最好的朋友怎么做？"每个人总是知道答案。所以，所以记住，主要的是不要让它拖累你。把它用作思考的工具，而不是沉溺的工具，不是忽视的工具，而是思考的工具。

A question from Kim, she says: "You're talking as if any bad decision or mistake is also a regret. And I'm not sure that that's always the case. Can you share your definition of regret? I think especially after doing this project." Yeah, yeah. What is your definition?

来自金的一个问题，她说："你说得好像任何糟糕的决定或错误也是一种遗憾。我不确定总是这样。你能分享一下你对遗憾的定义吗？特别是做完这个项目之后。" 是的，是的。你的定义是什么？

There's a difference between a regret and a mistake. All right? So you can make a mistake and not regret it because you say, oh, you know, you immediately learn something from it or it was a worthy mistake. A regret is something where you look backward at something where you had control, where you had some agency, you did something wrong and it sticks with you. It doesn't go away and it sticks with you for a very long time.

遗憾和错误之间有区别。好吧？所以你可以犯一个错误但不后悔，因为你说，哦，你知道，你立刻从中学到了东西，或者它是一个有价值的错误。遗憾是你回顾某件事，在那件事上你有控制权，你有某种能动性，你做错了事，而且它困扰着你。它不会消失，它会困扰你很长时间。

So there's a big difference for instance, between I can make a mistake and actually not regret it because it's not significant enough to me to linger, right? So that's the difference between a regret and a mistake. It's basically the duration of, essentially the half-life of the negative emotion. There's a huge difference between regret and disappointment.

所以有很大的区别，例如，我可以犯一个错误但实际上并不后悔，因为它对我来说不够重要，不会持续困扰，对吧？所以这就是遗憾和错误的区别。基本上是负面情绪的持续时间，实质上就是半衰期。遗憾和失望之间有巨大的区别。

Huge difference between regret and disappointment, because with disappointment you don't have any kind of control. The great example of that is from Janet Landman, former professor at the University of Michigan. She tells a story of like a seven year old loses her third tooth before she goes to sleep. She puts the tooth under the pillow. When she wakes up, the tooth is still there. The kid is disappointed, but the parents regret leaving that.

遗憾和失望有天壤之别，因为对于失望，你没有任何控制力。一个很好的例子来自密歇根大学前教授珍妮特·兰德曼。她讲了一个故事，比如一个七岁的孩子在睡觉前掉了第三颗牙。她把牙齿放在枕头下。当她醒来时，牙齿还在那里。孩子很失望，但父母后悔忘记了放钱。

So you have to have some agency and it has to have enough significance that it stays with you. And once again, going back to these four core regrets, it ends up being the same kinds of things that if you said, oh, I shouldn't have bought that kind of car, it might stink for a little bit, but the half-life is very, very short. But other kinds of things stick with us and stick with us, and those are the things often of significance.

所以你必须有一定的能动性，而且它必须有足够的重要性，才会一直伴随着你。再次回到这四种核心遗憾，最终都是同类的事情。如果你说，哦，我不该买那种车，它可能会让你不爽一阵子，但半衰期非常非常短。但另一些事情会一直伴随着我们，那些往往是具有重大意义的事情。

Well, thank you so much, Dan for chatting with us and I love ending there. If not now, when? And we will see you soon. Thank you Dan, thanks a lot. What a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

好的，非常感谢你，丹，与我们交谈。我喜欢在这里结束。此时不做，更待何时？我们很快会再见到你。谢谢你，丹，非常感谢。非常荣幸。谢谢邀请我。

That was Daniel H. Pink and Whitney Pennington Rogers in conversation for a TED membership event in 2022.

以上是丹尼尔·H·平克和惠特尼·彭宁顿·罗杰斯在2022年一场TED会员活动中的对话。