Regret an All-Too-Common Emotion, Especially Among Activists

The Hidden Brain is a fabulous radio program, broadcast on 900 NPR affiliates around the country. With a seemingly limitless variety of guests, host Shankar Vedantam discusses brain functions, emotional responses, and cognitive processes that happen outside of our conscious awareness, but that have a decisive effect on how we behave.

According to last week’s show, regret is the second most common human emotion, and the most common negative emotion.  But why are we so stuck on incidents from our past, given that we have no power whatsoever to undo them?  (Check out the podcast if you’re curious), which I hope you are.

In any case, those who know the name James Hansen might be able to guess his biggest regret. Hansen is best known for his research in climatology, his 1988 Congressional testimony on climate change that helped raise broad awareness of global warming, and his advocacy of action to avoid dangerous climate change. In recent years he has become a climate activist to mitigate the effects of climate change, on a few occasions leading to his arrest.

Perhaps this is a point of emotional concern that is common to everyone who takes on a philanthropic challenge: I could have done more.