Watch Insight’s episode No Regrets — exploring how regret can be useful, and if a life of no regrets is possible — on SBS On Demand.
When Michelle Lee assessed her life at the age of 38, wondering if she’d be happy if she died tomorrow, the answer was clear.
“I was not. I was dissatisfied,” she told SBS Insight.
“So in that moment, I just said to myself, you just need to start saying yes to opportunity.”
Determined to live without regret, she made some big changes, including leaving a corporate career and her relationship of 22 years, 12 of those married.
“I said to myself: ‘right, this is it’ … breaking free from the confines that my life had for so long.”
Those ‘yeses’ led Michelle to take up triathlons and mud runs, take solo holidays and walk the Kokoda Track.
The next adventure was to row solo, unassisted and without stopping, across the Atlantic Ocean in 2018, before rowing across the Pacific Ocean in 2022.
In her pursuit to live a life without regrets, Michelle became the first Australian woman to row the Atlantic solo, and the first to row the Pacific Ocean solo, unassisted and without stopping. Source: Supplied
“I just love adventure, I love getting out there and exiting the matrix,” she said.
“You just have to say yes.
“Your radar is then switched on, and you’ll start to see all those opportunities that are there in front of you.”
I ‘hated every minute’ of my career
Anjani Amriit was full of regrets, heading down a career path she never enjoyed because of one thoughtless comment.
Speaking to her school’s career adviser as a teenager, Anjani said she wanted to go to university and was thinking of studying law or medicine.
“He literally laughed in my face and said: ‘You can’t be a lawyer, you’re a woman,'” Anjani told Insight.
“So I thought: ‘well, I’ll show you’.”
Growing up in an immigrant family and being first in family to go to uni, Anjani felt she needed to become a lawyer to make her family proud. Source: Supplied
Anjani came from an immigrant family and was the first person in her family to go to university.
She says she thought a successful white-collar career would make her family proud, but studying and working in law took a toll.
“I hated every minute of it,” Anjani told Insight.
“Looking back, I regret wasting 16 years of my life … trying to prove something to society, to my family, I don’t know,” she said.
When regret is useful
Professor Lionel Page, a behavioural economist, said regret can be a painful but useful emotion.
“Regret is thinking, after the fact, what you could have done differently. Or you could have done something that you didn’t do,” he explained.
“It helps us learn … it pushes us to think through what we did, not to repeat the mistakes.
“That allows us to progress through life, to make better decisions.”
Studying left me with debt that I’ll never be able to pay back
Jessica Herbert shares Anjani’s regret over her career choices.
Her studies have left her with a hefty $83,000 HECS debt, with little hope of paying it off any time soon.
Jessica studied for a business degree, majoring in event management and marketing. She also started two master’s degrees in similar fields, but had to drop her studies to work to support herself.
Jessica completed a Bachelor of Business majoring in events and a semester of a master’s degree before she asked herself what she was doing. Source: Supplied
She was working in event management at music festivals, not earning enough to pay back her HECS fees.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and the industry shut down.
Jessica said she doesn’t regret going to university, but she regrets not thinking deeply about the cost at the time.
She now works in disability and community services, and said her past choices now influence her future decisions.
“Instead of saving up for a holiday, I’m saving up to pay off my HECS debt,” she said.
“But I think it has driven me to pursue more profitable career choices, so that I can get on top of those bills and live a more fruitful life.”
Motivated to make changes
It took Anjani 16 years to leave the career she says she hated.
When she finally took the leap, she “took a plane and went to India to find myself, as you do”.
Anjani said it took years to “defrost the persona” she’d built as a lawyer and discover what she really wanted to do with her life.
She now works with other women to help them pursue the lives they want, rather than conforming to others’ expectations.
Anjani said her own regret has been a strong motivator.
“I think we’re not really living life if we’re saying we have no regrets,” she said.
“However, I feel like regret is a part of life we can really grow from … we can really check in with ourselves and ask ourselves those deeper questions: Who am I? Why am I here? Am I on the right path for me?
Michelle has decided to stay single so she can remain clear about her own life desires.
“I love the whole idea of my life where I don’t ask, I don’t answer, I don’t justify, I don’t explain.”
She’s currently planning more ocean adventures and to walk the 230km Larapinta Trail in the Northern Territory with two friends.
But while Michelle now lives a life of no regrets, she does have one — not starting sooner.
“I think well, what else would have I done, had of I started a lot earlier?
“I wonder what else would have I achieved?”
* An earlier version of this article was published in July 2024.
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