The Necessary Ache

Tara Daneshmand on regret and the courage to choose.

- Tara Daneshmand

Renowned Iranian poet Ahmad Shamloo says that pain is fundamental to human existence — not merely an incidental experience, but its very starting point.

Pain is the price of consciousness, freedom, and choice itself. Reflecting on this insight, I recognized a profound yet rarely acknowledged truth: every choice we make inherently involves regret, so there are no completely pain-free paths in life. Regret is not just residue from poor decisions — it is the echo of roads not taken, resurfacing unexpectedly at various points in life. Even choices aligned deeply with our values can lead to regret as values evolve and circumstances shift. What once felt essential might later feel misaligned.

The idea of a regret-free life is a comforting but unrealistic fantasy. As psychologist Barry Schwartz argues in his exploration of the paradox of choice (The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, 2004), increased freedom does not diminish regret; rather, it often magnifies it, precisely because we become more acutely aware of the paths we did not take. Even when we make conscious, ethical, well-considered decisions, regret inevitably finds its way in — not due to failure, but because choosing inherently involves loss: every path taken leaves behind untaken lives, and these untaken lives remain with us, haunting us not because we erred, but because we had to choose. So regret is not a glitch in human psychology; it’s the shadow cast by our agency. Even the best decisions cannot escape regret. Research on regret confirms that, over time, people are more haunted by things they did not do than by actions they took; yet both action and inaction bear their own weight.

The Myth of a Painless Life