Comment by l5870uoo9y

My wife grew up in the Cultural Revolution. I grew up in an unsafe and disordered environment. When I made peak money we spent a lot on awesome experiences, then saved a good chunk. Instead of making payments on a house in the kind of enclave where pro athletes lived, we paid cash in a FAANG neighborhood. Both of us have zero expectations about the future. We have no debt and I retired comfortably but not too lavishly. Our farmhouse is not beautiful but we can afford a good health plan.

We both understood sunk costs from the beginning. We know governments love to take things. Of course we could have saved more. But the people I grew up with are dead or homeless addicts. Many of the people she grew up with were destroyed or disappeared by the government. If catastrophe strikes, and we have to move to a shoebox outside of Cleveland, that’s what we’ll do.

Fatalism has worked out well for us. We are exceptionally fortunate to think congruently on those matters.

I almost wrote this:

> I disagree. The best thing to do to avoid regrets is to act, to take the step forward. Not to resign ourselves and diminish ourselves hoping to soften the nastiness the world is sending us.

> Stoicism is good when you are being tortured (hello John McCain), when you are in the final stage of incurable illness, when you are a slave (hello Epictetus edit: oops, I meant Epictus) and have no agency.

But upon re-reading the advice is about the past, not the future and it's not an endorsement of the whole of stoicism and I think I could agree with it. I just don't follow through with the whole Stoic ethos.

Especially in these days and age where it's being promoted by ex-marketing executives feeding off of people who are lost. It's Tony Robbins's exploitation of people in bad places all over again. It's mindfulness meditation training for employees instead of raising wages and getting rid of monthly quotas.

It sounds to me like you convince yourself there was no other way. It's an interesting dilemma - lie to yourself that it was fate and live a happy life, or torture yourself with the consequences of the truth.

I like the advice of the article better - approach every decision knowing not all of them will work out. It's what I ended up in the last couple years and it has worked ot out for me. Fear of failure can paralyze you and this will cause even more regrets. The advice doesn't help with old regrets though - for this it boils down to, for me: dwell and die slowly or forgive yourself for making a mistake and move on with your life. Can't change the past, but you can change the future.