As time-traveling storytellers, humans easily get swept away by regret.

Of course, Alfred Nobel isn’t the only man to have ever felt regret. Regret is one of the most common human emotions in the world, and almost everyone feels it at some point or another. In fact, a survey of 4,489 people across the United States found that Americans are more likely to feel regret than they are to floss their teeth. (Apologies to any dentists who are listening).

All in all, only one percent of survey respondents said they never look back on their life and wish they had done things differently. Meanwhile, a whopping 82 percent of people said that feeling regretful is at least an occasional part of their lives – and 43 percent of people said they engage in regretful thinking “frequently” or “all the time.”

That’s a whole lot of regret. But the statistics make sense, once you take a closer look at human nature. At their core, humans are – and this might be my new favorite definition of a human being – time-traveling storytellers. Our brains have the unique ability to revisit the past and invent alternative narratives – fictional storylines that never actually existed. This process is called counterfactual thinking. To see what it can look like in action, let’s take a trip to the 2016 Olympics in Rio De Janeiro. 

The women’s road race had just ended . . . but only two of the three medal-winning cyclists were celebrating. While her competitors smiled and embraced loved ones, silver medalist Emma Johansson buried her head in her hands – then walked over to huddle quietly with her husband. Her facial expression was flat, far from celebratory.

She had just achieved an objectively incredible feat. But second place is a very tricky spot to be in, due to that pesky psychological phenomenon I mentioned earlier: counterfactual thinking. 

To think counterfactually is to imagine how things could have gone – if only you’d done something else. The operative phrase here is “if only.” If only I’d gotten an extra five minutes of rest this morning. If only I’d eaten a bigger, or smaller, breakfast. If only I’d squeezed in 100 more hours of training, adjusted my breathing, or pushed a little harder, I would be wearing that gold medal. 

Would Emma Johansson actually have won gold if any of those counterfactual scenarios were true? It’s impossible to say. And that’s exactly why the human brain obsesses over these types of questions. As a silver medalist at the Olympic Games, it’s all too easy to spiral into ruminative “if only” territory rather than celebrating your success.

Now, let’s return to Alfred Nobel for a moment. You see, Alfred was actually pretty anomalous in his reaction to regret. Upon reading the false obituary, he easily could have spiraled into regretful counterfactual thinking: If only I’d focused my life’s work on another invention, instead of dynamite. If only I had learned what people thought of me much earlier in my career. If only I could undo the destruction my creations have caused. 

But punishing himself with this flurry of “if only”s would have been fruitless. So, instead, Alfred chose a much more productive route – taking action in the present to ensure he wouldn’t live with even more regret, tormented by still more “if only”s, in the years to come. While many people dwell in regret, Alfred used it to propel him toward a better future. 

You see, there’s a big difference between unproductive regret and productive regret. While unproductive regret paralyzes, productive regret catalyzes. And which option you choose is entirely up to you.