For anyone who keeps meaning to ask, and keeps putting it off
The Regrets That Get Worse With Time Are Never About What You Did
Psychologists have spent thirty years confirming the same pattern: the regrets we make peace with are almost always things we did. The ones that keep growing are things we never got around to.
In 1994, researchers Thomas Gilovich and Victoria Medvec published a finding that has been replicated many times since, most recently in a large public study in 2023: when you ask people about a recent regret, they tend to name something they did. Ask about their biggest regret looking back over years or decades, and the answer almost always flips to something they did not do.
The short-term sting of an action fades. **A decision you made, even a bad one, is a closed door: you can explain it to yourself, learn from it, and move on.** An inaction never closes. There was no decision to examine, no moment to make peace with, just an open question your mind keeps returning to.
Researchers call this the temporal pattern of regret, and it holds up across telephone surveys, written questionnaires, and a 2023 replication with thousands of participants. **The regrets that age the worst are not the things we said or did. They are the conversations we kept meaning to have.**
1. Why a bad decision hurts less in the long run than no decision at all
Psychologists describe this as a difference in how the mind can resolve the two kinds of regret. **An action gives you something concrete to work with: a cause, a lesson, a story you can eventually tell yourself about why it happened.** That process, sometimes called regret repair, blunts the pain over time.
An inaction offers nothing to repair. There is no event to reframe, only an absence. So the mind keeps replaying every version of how it could have gone, and each replay keeps the regret fresh instead of letting it fade.
A choice you made, even the wrong one, gives your mind something to close. Not choosing at all leaves the door open indefinitely.
2. The specific version almost everyone recognizes
Ask adult children about regrets involving a parent, and one pattern shows up again and again in surveys on bereavement and family communication: it is rarely about an argument or something said in anger. **It is almost always about a question that was never asked.** How did you and mom really meet. What was grandpa's life like before any of us existed. Why did you choose the career you chose.
Each of those questions felt like it could wait. There would be another holiday, another phone call, another chance. **The Gilovich and Medvec research explains why the ones that don't get asked hurt longest: there is no version of that missed conversation your mind can ever fully close.**
The regret that never fades is rarely a fight. It is the question you assumed you would get around to eventually.
3. You do not fix this with a bigger gesture, you fix it with the next ordinary call
Knowing the research does not make the next conversation easier to start. Most people do not skip these conversations because they do not care. They skip them because there is no natural opening, and a big, planned sit-down interview feels heavier than anyone wants a Tuesday phone call to be.
**With LifeScribe, Ari asks the questions on a call you already have planned**, the same way a good interviewer would, so you never have to be the one to make it feel like An Occasion. The conversation turns into a keepsake in your family member's own words, and the question you were putting off finally gets asked before it becomes the one you cannot stop thinking about.
The fix for an inaction regret is small and ordinary: ask the question on a call you were already going to make.
I kept telling myself I'd ask my mom about her childhood 'next time we talked.' Ari asked for me on a random Tuesday call. Twenty minutes, and it's a question I don't have to carry around anymore.Elena, 38, recording her mother's stories on their weekly call
What you get with LifeScribe
- No booth, no studio, no big planned interview: just a phone call you already had scheduled.
- Ari asks the question you keep meaning to ask, so you never have to be the one to make it feel heavy.
- The conversation becomes a keepsake in your family member's own words, not a memory you are trusting yourself to hold onto.
- Closes the door on the regret research says grows the most: the question you never got around to.
Start free, with nothing to lose
Try it on a call you already have planned this week, free. Nothing to install, nothing to learn. If turning a few ordinary minutes into a keepsake does not feel worth it, you have lost nothing but a few minutes.
**The research is consistent: regret over what you did shrinks with time. Regret over what you never asked only grows.** You do not need the perfect moment or a special occasion. You need the next ordinary phone call you were already going to make.
Ask the question before it becomes the regret that never fades.
Pick a call you already have planned this week. Spend a few minutes of it asking the thing you keep meaning to ask.
Questions grandparents ask us
Is this a real study, or just a nice-sounding idea?
Yes. Thomas Gilovich and Victoria Medvec published the original finding in 1994 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and it has been replicated multiple times since, including a large public replication in 2023 with thousands of participants confirming the same pattern.
What exactly did the research find?
People tend to regret actions more in the short term, but over years and decades, regret over inaction (things never done or asked) becomes the more common and more persistent type of regret.
Why does an unasked question hurt more over time than a mistake?
A decision, even a bad one, gives the mind something concrete to make sense of and eventually let go of. An inaction leaves no event to resolve, so the mind keeps revisiting it instead of moving past it.
What if the conversation feels awkward to start?
That is the most common reason these questions go unasked. Ari asks them for you on a call you already have planned, so neither of you has to turn an ordinary conversation into a big planned interview.
What happens to what I record?
Each memory becomes a keepsake you and your family can read and share, so the question you finally asked turns into something you keep, not just something you remember hearing once.
https://getlifescribeapp.com/blog/the-regrets-that-get-worse-with-time