Regret or Remedy: Is It Better to Live with the Ache or Risk the Cure?

Every life includes turning points we can't quite forget. Decisions we didn't make. Words we didn't say. A phone call not made. A risk not taken. Whether you're 25 or 75, the question sooner or later arrives: Is it better to live with regrets—or take the chance of a remedy, knowing it might not work?
 
This question isn't academic. It shapes careers, relationships, and emotional health. And while conventional wisdom often leans toward keeping the past in the past, psychology—and lived experience—suggest something more complicated.
 
The Case for Regret
 
Regret, by nature, is safe. It's backward-looking and inert. People often justify their inaction with rationalizations that sound like wisdom: "There's no point dwelling on it" or "What's done is done." These are self-protective mantras, shielding us from emotional risk. But regret doesn't go away; it lingers, subtle and unresolved.
 
Psychologists have long studied the long-term effects of regret. What's clear is that people tend to regret inaction far more than mistakes made while trying to do something. One of the most widely cited studies, led by Cornell psychologist Thomas Gilovich, found that people's biggest regrets were not about what they did wrong but about what they never tried to do at all.
 
That's because regret is rarely about a specific event, it's about a fracture in the self-story. It leaves you with a narrative gap: I could have been… or I should have said… In contrast to failure, regret doesn't offer closure. It offers doubt.
 
The Risk and Power of Remedy
 
Then there's the other path, the one that keeps people up at night but also gives life meaning: taking action. The remedy doesn't mean fixing the past. It means confronting it, risking embarrassment, disappointment, or emotional messiness in the name of resolution.
 
This is often misunderstood. Seeking a remedy doesn't guarantee a happy ending. The person may not forgive you. The job opportunity may be gone. The bridge may already be burned. But the key distinction is agency. You tried. And trying, even when it doesn't change the outcome, often changes you.
 
Take the example of someone reaching out to a long-lost friend or estranged family member. Perhaps they don't get the reunion they wanted, but they usually feel a sense of relief. They did what they could. And that's often enough to shift the internal narrative from regret to relief.
 
Why the Brain Favors Action
 
From a neurological standpoint, taking action relieves cognitive dissonance. Regret activates pain centers in the brain, not unlike physical distress. Remedy, by contrast, engages reward systems—even when the effort fails—because the brain values resolution.

Studies in behavioral economics echo this. People report more satisfaction after trying and failing than they do after avoiding the issue entirely. The discomfort of failure fades. The pain of wondering 'what if' rarely lasts.
 
And culturally, we admire the person who tried. Even in personal relationships or when faced with a broken career path, we often forgive effort more easily than we forgive passivity.
 
When to Let It Lie
 
This doesn't mean all regrets deserve a remedy. There are situations where revisiting the past causes more harm than healing, especially if the other party has moved on or if the original regret stems from behavior that can't be repaired.
 
However, many people default to silence or avoidance when the better path, though more emotionally taxing, might be to speak up, ask a question, apologize, admit their feelings, or take a risk. Not because it guarantees redemption but because it allows one to live without narrative paralysis.
 
Final Thoughts
 
So, is it better to live with regret or to risk a remedy? In most cases, the answer leans toward a remedy, not because it's comfortable but because it keeps the story moving forward.
 
Living with regret is a form of quiet surrender. Taking action, even clumsily, signals ownership of one's own narrative. And ultimately, peace tends to reside not in perfection but in the knowledge that you tried when it counted.