Last week I went to a book signing event to see the author Malcolm Gladwell be interviewed about his new book, Revenge of the Tipping Point.  I’ve always admired Gladwell because of his interest in understanding complex and counterintuitive relationships.  He, indeed, impressed me as an extremely curious person who delights in coming up with unusual questions.  But what really impressed me was his process for finding answers.  So if curiosity can kill the cat, dear kitty, Gladwell has some good advice for you.

Gladwell was asked, given his many pursuits, how he defines himself – a journalist, writer, podcaster, philosopher?  I loved his response.  He said, “mostly, I’m a listener.”  Gladwell went on to explain his process of spending a lot of time with the people he’s writing about.  He records long sessions of asking questions and listens carefully to his subjects’ responses.  He shared how over the years he’d learned the value of investing significant time in hearing people tell their own stories in order to find deeper truths.  Careful and prolonged listening was his way of gathering information from his sources rather than making assumptions.

This resonated with me as a person who is constantly a work in progress as an artful listener.  To do it well is an active process, yet we often do it so passively.  Consequentially, we jump to conclusions and fill in gaps of information with our own ideas and interpretations.  Our relationships are built on the stories we tell ourselves about one another.  We may be curious about someone, but unless we ask and really listen to them, we project our own experience as a substitute.  This most often leads to frustration, misunderstanding, and potential conflict.

Too often we let our anxiety and fear answer our questions. Why didn’t she return my call? She must not like me. He didn’t say hello to me, he must be mad at me. She keeps her phone in her purse so I don’t see who she’s texting, she must be cheating on me. In my work with people, we frequently spend time untangling what the story is they’ve created and what facts support or refute it.  Then we look at what might have prompted the story in the first place.  It usually comes from a desire to feel in control.  If we don’t know, we feel vulnerable.  If we think we know, then we have certainty. Certainty is usually more comfortable than ambiguity. Even to the point that assuming we were rejected or slighted is more comfortable than not knowing!

Sitting with uncertainty is difficult, yet, research shows that it’s a foundation of well being.  If we can tolerate the discomfort of uncertainty, we gain by being more careful, thoughtful, and intentional in our responses.  We give ourselves time and space to gather information and process it.  While it may be uncomfortable in the short term, taking the time to ask questions of ourselves and of others and actually listen to the responses helps us in the long run.

So, little kitty, looks like it’s ok to be curious, just protect yourself by listening to what’s really going on. And, funny thing.  I looked up the origin of “curiosity killed the cat.”  Turns out, that’s not the entire proverb! It actually reads “Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.”  In other words, asking a question may be risky, but finding the truth is worthwhile.

This time of year marks the Jewish New Year.  Unlike most cultures that eat great food and party all night, we Jews fast and feel guilty for everything we’ve done wrong the previous year.  But seriously, I do appreciate the idea of reflecting on the life we’re living and how we may have “missed the mark,” as it’s referred to.  New Year’s rituals provide an opportunity, in community, to own our mistakes, make amends, and commit to a better path.  To be honest, though, I sometimes get a little overwhelmed by negativity.  It’s painful and makes me feel helpless at how to move beyond actions I feel badly about but can’t undo  So when I came across Daniel Pink, author of The Power of Regret:  How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward, I found some helpful advice on how we might move out of painful guilt and into healthy change all year long.

Pink’s book is based on surveys of over 4,000 Americans about their relationship with the feeling of regret.  As we would imagine, most people experienced regret as painful, the intensity of which depended on the level of consequence of what is regretted.  For example, some regrets can be inconsequential overall, such as wishing we’d learned an instrument or not accepting an invitation that turned out to be a good experience for the people who did.  We may feel a sense of loss, but it’s relatively easy to move past.  The regrets that really hurt us are the ones when we wished we’d done something differently in circumstances that were morally or emotionally significant, like not making peace with someone before they died or saying hurtful things out of anger to someone we love.

The first tip offered by Pink is to view our pain as a source of growth and insight.  We can use our regret as information to learn from and it can clarify what is most important to us.  Regrets can serve as guides to future action if we can listen to what our feelings are telling us about our past action and the outcome of our choices.

But in doing so, Pink emphasizes we need to talk to ourselves with compassion and create understanding.  Speak to yourself as if you’re talking to a friend you love, offering support and guidance over judgment.  Sometimes sharing our regret with other people can help us gain perspective and decrease the isolation we have around our regret.  Once we share, we’re likely to hear that others have similar experiences.  Writing about them can also be a way to process our feelings and let them out, allowing ourselves to think it through and release it.  Writing to answer the questions “What did I learn from this situation,” or “How will I make a different choice in the future,” can solidify our growth mindset.

Another tip is to figure out if there’s still something you can do about it.  Often we’re so overwhelmed with guilt or negative feelings, we become paralyzed.  We avoid thinking about it and even avoid the people involved because of our shame.  It’s helpful to ask yourself if there’s a way to make amends or change your current course of action to be more in line with what you’ve identified as a mistake or error in living your values.  Taking action is a great tool in overcoming the helpless feelings that can accompany regret.

And finally, Pink offers the suggestion of using the term “at least” with your situation to reframe it and gain perspective about how it could’ve been worse.  By shifting from “if only I’d done more to help my brother with his illness,” we can reframe it to remind ourselves of the things we did do, such as “at least I called him regularly, even if I couldn’t visit him as often as I would’ve liked.”  When we’re pulled into regret, we often overlook balancing forces or intentions that we would readily recognize for others.  

Allowing ourselves to explore our regret is a way of coping with it and gaining insight.  The process is not about letting ourselves off the hook or making excuses, but to find a truthful understanding of what our feelings mean to us and how we can use them as a beacon rather than a weapon.  As I sit in the High Holy Days services, I do notice it’s nice to be among others who are also taking stock of their lives.  Somehow it reminds us that we’re all human and no one can live a life without errors or missteps.  And actually, the very nature of the holiday is the assumption of this common human frailty.  It’s nice to allow ourselves the opportunity to release these burdens and commit ourselves to a better path.  Otherwise, we’d regret it.