So that's Johnny Depp, of course. And that's Johnny Depp's shoulder. And that's Johnny Depp's famous shoulder tattoo. Some of you might know that, in 1990, Depp got engaged to Winona Ryder, and he had tattooed on his right shoulder "Winona forever." And then three years later -- which in fairness, kind of is forever by Hollywood standards -- they broke up, and Johnny went and got a little bit of repair work done. And now his shoulder says, "Wino forever."
Ovo je Johnny Depp, naravno. Ovo je rame Johnnyja Deppa. A ovo je poznata tetovaža na ramenu Johnnyja Deppa. Neki od vas možda znaju da se 1990. godine Depp zaručio s Winonom Ryder i na desnom ramenu istetovirao "Winona zauvijek". A onda, tri godine kasnije -- što i jest prava vječnost po holivudskim standardima -- prekinuli su i Johnny je otišao na mali popravak. Sad mu na ramenu piše "Wino zauvijek".
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
So like Johnny Depp, and like 25 percent of Americans between the ages of 16 and 50, I have a tattoo. I first started thinking about getting it in my mid-20s, but I deliberately waited a really long time. Because we all know people who have gotten tattoos when they were 17 or 19 or 23 and regretted it by the time they were 30. That didn't happen to me. I got my tattoo when I was 29, and I regretted it instantly. And by "regretted it," I mean that I stepped outside of the tattoo place -- this is just a couple miles from here down on the Lower East Side -- and I had a massive emotional meltdown in broad daylight on the corner of East Broadway and Canal Street. (Laughter) Which is a great place to do it because nobody cares. (Laughter) And then I went home that night, and I had an even larger emotional meltdown, which I'll say more about in a minute.
Kao Johnny Depp, i kao i 25 posto Amerikanaca u dobi između 16 i 50 godina, i ja imam tetovažu. O tome sam počela razmišljati sredinom svojih 20-ih godina, ali namjerno sam čekala vrlo dugo. Jer svi poznajemo nekoga tko si je dao napraviti tetovažu kad je imao 17 godina ili 19 ili 23 i požalio to do svoje 30. godine. Meni se to nije dogodilo. Ja sam se tetovirala s 29 godina i požalila sam istog trena. Kad kažem "požalila", mislim da sam izišla iz salona -- tek nekoliko kilometara odavde, u četvrti Lower East Side -- i doživjela ogroman emocionalni slom usred bijela dana na uglu ulica East Broadway i Canal Street. (Smijeh) To je odlično mjesto za tako nešto jer nikoga nije briga. (Smijeh) Zatim sam otišla kući i doživjela još veći emocionalni slom, o čemu ću više reći za koji trenutak.
And this was all actually quite shocking to me, because prior to this moment, I had prided myself on having absolutely no regrets. I made a lot of mistakes and dumb decisions, of course. I do that hourly. But I had always felt like, look, you know, I made the best choice I could make given who I was then, given the information I had on hand. I learned a lesson from it. It somehow got me to where I am in life right now. And okay, I wouldn't change it. In other words, I had drunk our great cultural Kool-Aid about regret, which is that lamenting things that occurred in the past is an absolute waste of time, that we should always look forward and not backward, and that one of the noblest and best things we can do is strive to live a life free of regrets.
To me zapravo prilično šokiralo jer sam se prije toga ponosila time da apsolutno ni zbog čega ne žalim. Napravila sam mnogo pogrešaka i donijela glupih odluka, naravno. Stalno to radim. Ali uvijek sam imala osjećaj da, čuj, donijela sam najbolju odluku koju sam mogla s obzirom na to tko sam bila u tom trenu i na informacije koje su mi bile dostupne. Nešto sam naučila iz toga. To me nekako dovelo ovamo gdje se sada nalazim. I u redu, ne bih to promijenila. Drugim riječima, usvojila sam naš kulturološki stav o žaljenju, a to je da je jadikovanje o stvarima iz prošlosti apsolutni gubitak vremena, da uvijek moramo gledati naprijed, a ne natrag i da je jedna od najboljih stvari koje možemo učiniti to da živimo život bez žaljenja.
This idea is nicely captured by this quote: "Things without all remedy should be without regard; what's done is done." And it seems like kind of an admirable philosophy at first -- something we might all agree to sign onto ... until I tell you who said it. Right, so this is Lady MacBeth basically telling her husband to stop being such a wuss for feeling bad about murdering people. And as it happens, Shakespeare was onto something here, as he generally was. Because the inability to experience regret is actually one of the diagnostic characteristics of sociopaths. It's also, by the way, a characteristic of certain kinds of brain damage. So people who have damage to their orbital frontal cortex seem to be unable to feel regret in the face of even obviously very poor decisions. So if, in fact, you want to live a life free of regret, there is an option open to you. It's called a lobotomy. But if you want to be fully functional and fully human and fully humane, I think you need to learn to live, not without regret, but with it.
Tu ideju lijepo obuhvaća ovaj citat: "Na stvari za koje nema lijeka ne trebamo obraćati pažnju; što je bilo, bilo je." I to se isprva čini krasnom filozofijom, nešto s čime se svi možemo složiti... sve dok vam ne kažem tko je to rekao. Da, to je Lady MacBeth koja, u biti, govori svojem suprugu da prestane biti slabić i osjećati krivicu što je ubijao ljude. Ispada da je Shakespeare ovdje shvatio nešto veliko, kao i obično. Jer nesposobnost da se osjeti krivnja zapravo je jedna od dijagnostičkih osobina sociopata. Karakteristična je i za neke vrste oštećenja mozga. Ljudi koji imaju oštećenja na orbitofrontalnom korteksu ne mogu osjetiti žaljenje čak ni kad donesu očito vrlo loše odluke. Ako zaista želite živjeti život bez žaljenja, imate otvorenu mogućnost. Zove se lobotomija. Ali ako želite biti potpuno funkcionalni i potpuno ljudi i potpuno humani, mislim da trebate naučiti živjeti ne bez žaljenja, već s njim,
So let's start off by defining some terms. What is regret? Regret is the emotion we experience when we think that our present situation could be better or happier if we had done something different in the past. So in other words, regret requires two things. It requires, first of all, agency -- we had to make a decision in the first place. And second of all, it requires imagination. We need to be able to imagine going back and making a different choice, and then we need to be able to kind of spool this imaginary record forward and imagine how things would be playing out in our present. And in fact, the more we have of either of these things -- the more agency and the more imagination with respect to a given regret, the more acute that regret will be.
Počnimo s definicijama nekih termina. Što je žaljenje? Žaljenje je osjećaj koji doživljavamo kad mislimo da bi naša trenutna situacija mogla biti bolja ili sretnija da smo nešto učinili drugačije u prošlosti. Drugim riječima, za žaljenje su potrebne dvije stvari. Prvo je potrebno djelovanje - za početak smo morali donijeti neku odluku. Drugo, potrebno je zamišljanje. Moramo moći zamisliti kako se vraćamo i mijenjamo izbor, i onda moramo moći ubrzati ovaj zamišljeni događaj i zamisliti kako bi se stvari odvijale u sadašnjosti. I zapravo, što više imamo ikoje od tih dviju stvari -- što više djelovanja i što više zamišljanja vezano za određenu stvar zbog koje žalimo, to će akutnije postati žaljenje.
So let's say for instance that you're on your way to your best friend's wedding and you're trying to get to the airport and you're stuck in terrible traffic, and you finally arrive at your gate and you've missed your flight. You're going to experience more regret in that situation if you missed your flight by three minutes than if you missed it by 20. Why? Well because, if you miss your flight by three minutes, it is painfully easy to imagine that you could have made different decisions that would have led to a better outcome. "I should have taken the bridge and not the tunnel. I should have gone through that yellow light." These are the classic conditions that create regret. We feel regret when we think we are responsible for a decision that came out badly, but almost came out well.
Recimo, primjerice, da ste na putu na vjenčanje najboljeg prijatelja i pokušavate doći do aerodroma i zapeli ste u prometnoj gužvi, i napokon stižete do svojeg ulaza, ali propustili ste let. U toj ćete situaciji više žaliti ako ste na let zakasnili tri minute nego ako ste zakasnili 20 minuta. Zašto? Zato što, ako na let zakasnite tri minute, bolno je lako zamisliti da ste mogli donijeti drugačije odluke, koje bi dovele do boljeg rezultata. "Trebao sam ići preko mosta, a ne tunelom. Trebao sam proći na onom žutom svjetlu." To su tipični uvjeti u kojima dolazi do žaljenja. Osjećamo žaljenje kad mislimo da smo odgovorni za odluke koje su završile loše, ali su zamalo završile dobro.
Now within that framework, we can obviously experience regret about a lot of different things. This session today is about behavioral economics. And most of what we know about regret comes to us out of that domain. We have a vast body of literature on consumer and financial decisions and the regrets associated with them -- buyer's remorse, basically. But then finally, it occurred to some researchers to step back and say, well okay, but overall, what do we regret most in life? Here's what the answers turn out to look like.
U tom okviru, očito možemo osjetiti žaljenje zbog mnogo raznih stvari. Današnja je konferencija o bihevioralnoj ekonomiji. Većina onoga što znamo o žaljenju dolazi iz tog područja. Imamo mnogo literature o potrošačima i financijskim odlukama i žaljenju povezanom s njima -- kajanje kupca, u biti. Ali na kraju, nekim je istraživačima sinulo da se malo odmaknu i kažu, dobro, ali općenito, zbog čega u životu najviše žalimo? Evo kakvi su ispali rezultati.
So top six regrets -- the things we regret most in life: Number one by far, education. 33 percent of all of our regrets pertain to decisions we made about education. We wish we'd gotten more of it. We wish we'd taken better advantage of the education that we did have. We wish we'd chosen to study a different topic. Others very high on our list of regrets include career, romance, parenting, various decisions and choices about our sense of self and how we spend our leisure time -- or actually more specifically, how we fail to spend our leisure time. The remaining regrets pertain to these things: finance, family issues unrelated to romance or parenting, health, friends, spirituality and community.
6 najčešćih žaljenja -- stvari zbog kojih najviše žalimo i životu: Uvjerljivo je na prvom mjestu obrazovanje. 33 posto svih stvari zbog kojih žalimo vezano je za naše odluke o obrazovanju. Želimo da smo se više obrazovali. Želimo da smo bolje iskoristili obrazovanje koje jesmo primili. Želimo da smo studirali nešto drugo. Druge stvari koje su visoko na popisu jesu karijera, ljubav, roditeljstvo, razne odluke i izbori vezano za našu svijest o sebi i o tome kako provodimo slobodno vrijeme -- zapravo, konkretnije, kako nismo uspjeli provesti slobodno vrijeme. Žalimo još i zbog ovih stvari: financija, obiteljskih pitanja nevezanih za ljubav i roditeljstvo, zdravlja, prijatelja, duhovnosti i zajednice.
So in other words, we know most of what we know about regret by the study of finance. But it turns out, when you look overall at what people regret in life, you know what, our financial decisions don't even rank. They account for less than three percent of our total regrets. So if you're sitting there stressing about large cap versus small cap, or company A versus company B, or should you buy the Subaru or the Prius, you know what, let it go. Odds are, you're not going to care in five years.
Drugim riječima, većinu onoga što znamo o žaljenju znamo iz proučavanja financija. Ispada da, kad gledate zbog čega ljudi općenito žale u životu, naše financijske odluke ni ne ulaze na popis. Na njih otpada manje od tri posto našeg ukupnog žaljenja. Pa ako sjedite i živcirate se oko velike i male tržišne kapitalizacije, ili oko tvrtke A u odnosu na tvrtku B, ili oko toga je li bolje da kupite Subaru ili Prius, znate što, zaboravite to. Za pet godina vjerojatno vas neće biti briga za to.
But for these things that we actually do really care about and do experience profound regret around, what does that experience feel like? We all know the short answer. It feels terrible. Regret feels awful. But it turns out that regret feels awful in four very specific and consistent ways. So the first consistent component of regret is basically denial. When I went home that night after getting my tattoo, I basically stayed up all night. And for the first several hours, there was exactly one thought in my head. And the thought was, "Make it go away!" This is an unbelievably primitive emotional response. I mean, it's right up there with, "I want my mommy!" We're not trying to solve the problem. We're not trying to understand how the problem came about. We just want it to vanish.
Ali za stvari do kojih nam je stvarno stalo i zbog kojih duboko žalimo, kakav je to osjećaj? Svi znamo kratak odgovor. Osjećaj je strašan. Željenje je grozan osjećaj. Ali pokazalo se da je žaljenje grozan osjećaj na četiri vrlo konkretna i stalna načina. Prva stalna sastavnica žaljenja jest, u biti, poricanje. Kad sam one večeri otišla kući nakon što sam se tetovirala, ostala sam budna cijelu noć. Prvih nekoliko sati imala sam samo jednu misao u glavi. A ta je misao bila: "Neka nestane!" To je nevjerojatno primitivna emocionalna reakcija. Negdje u rangu s: "Hoću svoju mamu!" Ne pokušavamo riješiti problem. Ne pokušavamo shvatiti kako je došlo do problema. Samo želimo da nestane.
The second characteristic component of regret is a sense of bewilderment. So the other thing I thought about there in my bedroom that night was, "How could I have done that? What was I thinking?" This real sense of alienation from the part of us that made a decision we regret. We can't identify with that part. We don't understand that part. And we certainly don't have any empathy for that part -- which explains the third consistent component of regret, which is an intense desire to punish ourselves. That's why, in the face of our regret, the thing we consistently say is, "I could have kicked myself." The fourth component here is that regret is what psychologists call perseverative. To perseverate means to focus obsessively and repeatedly on the exact same thing. Now the effect of perseveration is to basically take these first three components of regret and put them on an infinite loop. So it's not that I sat there in my bedroom that night, thinking, "Make it go away." It's that I sat there and I thought, "Make it go away. Make it go away. Make it go away. Make it go away." So if you look at the psychological literature, these are the four consistent defining components of regret.
Druga tipična sastavnica željenja jest osjećaj čuđenja. Druga stvar o kojoj sam te večeri razmišljala u svojoj sobi bila je: "Kako sam to mogla učiniti? Gdje mi je pamet bila?" Taj stvarni osjećaj otuđenja od onog dijela nas koji je donio odluku zbog koje žalimo. Ne možemo se identificirati s tim dijelom. Ne razumijemo taj dio. I svakako ne suosjećamo s tim dijelom -- što objašnjava treću stalnu sastavnicu žaljenja, a to je snažna želja da se kaznimo. Zato, kad doživljavamo žaljenje, stalno govorimo: "Najradije bih se ošamarila." Četvrta je sastavnica to da je žaljenje, kako psiholozi kažu, ustrajno. Ustrajati znači opsesivno i opetovano se usredotočiti na jednu jedinu stvar. Rezulat ustrajnosti jest da se uzmu prve tri sastavnice žaljenja i stave u beskonačnu petlju. Znači, nije da sam te večeri sjedila u svojoj sobi i mislila: "Neka nestane." Ne, sjedila sam ondje i mislila: "Neka nestane. Neka nestane. Neka nestane. Neka nestane." U literaturi iz psihologije stoji da su to četiri stalne sastavnice koje definiraju žaljenje.
But I want to suggest that there's also a fifth one. And I think of this as a kind of existential wake-up call. That night in my apartment, after I got done kicking myself and so forth, I lay in bed for a long time, and I thought about skin grafts. And then I thought about how, much as travel insurance doesn't cover acts of God, probably my health insurance did not cover acts of idiocy. In point of fact, no insurance covers acts of idiocy. The whole point of acts of idiocy is that they leave you totally uninsured; they leave you exposed to the world and exposed to your own vulnerability and fallibility in face of, frankly, a fairly indifferent universe.
No, smatram da postoji i peta sastavnica. Smatram to nekom vrstom egzistencijalnog poziva na uzbunu. Te noći u svojem stanu, nakon što sam se išamarala i sve ostalo, dugo sam ležala u krevetu i razmišljala o presađivanju kože. Zatim sam razmišljala kako, kao što putno osiguranje ne pokriva višu silu, vjerojatno ni moje zdravstveno ne pokriva idiotsku silu. Zapravo ni jedno osiguranje ne pokriva idiotsku silu. Cijela poanta idiotske sile jesta da vas ostavlja potpuno neosigurane. Ostavlja vas izložene svijetu i vlastitoj ranjivosti i pogrešivosti, i to u, iskreno, vrlo nezainteresiranom svemiru.
This is obviously an incredibly painful experience. And I think it's particularly painful for us now in the West in the grips of what I sometimes think of as a Control-Z culture -- Control-Z like the computer command, undo. We're incredibly used to not having to face life's hard realities, in a certain sense. We think we can throw money at the problem or throw technology at the problem -- we can undo and unfriend and unfollow. And the problem is that there are certain things that happen in life that we desperately want to change and we cannot. Sometimes instead of Control-Z, we actually have zero control. And for those of us who are control freaks and perfectionists -- and I know where of I speak -- this is really hard, because we want to do everything ourselves and we want to do it right.
To je očito nevjerojatno bolno iskustvo. Mislim da je naročito bolno nama na Zapadu, uhvaćenima u nešto što ponekad liči na kulturu "Ctrl + Z" -- u smislu kompjutorske naredbe, "undo" - poništi. Nevjerojatno smo naviknuti da se ne moramo suočiti s okrutnom stvarnošću života, na neki način. Mislimo da problem možemo riješiti novcem ili tehnologijom -- možemo poništiti i izbaciti iz prijatelja i prestati pratiti. Problem je što se u životu događaju određene stvari koje očajno želimo promijeniti, ali ne možemo. Ponekad umjesto Ctrl + Z zapravo uopće nemamo kontrolu. A onima od nas koji kontrol frikovi i perfekcionisti -- a znam o kome govorim -- to je vrlo teško jer sve želimo učiniti sami i želimo to učiniti kako treba.
Now there is a case to be made that control freaks and perfectionists should not get tattoos, and I'm going to return to that point in a few minutes. But first I want to say that the intensity and persistence with which we experience these emotional components of regret is obviously going to vary depending on the specific thing that we're feeling regretful about. So for instance, here's one of my favorite automatic generators of regret in modern life. (Laughter) Text: Relpy to all. And the amazing thing about this really insidious technological innovation is that even just with this one thing, we can experience a huge range of regret. You can accidentally hit "reply all" to an email and torpedo a relationship. Or you can just have an incredibly embarrassing day at work. Or you can have your last day at work.
Ima nešto u tome da se kontrol frikovi i perfekcionisti ne bi trebali tetovirati i vratit ću se na to za nekoliko minuta. Ali prvo želim reći da će se intenzitet i upornost kojima doživljavamo te emocionalne sastavnice žaljenja očito mijenjati ovisno o konkretnoj stvari zbog koje osjećamo žaljenje. Primjerice, ovo je jedan od mojih omiljenih automatskih uzročnika željenja modernog doba. (Smijeh) Tekst: Odgovori svima. Ono što me zadivljuje u vezi s ovom zaista opasnom tehnološkom inovacijom jest da čak i samo zbog te jedne stvari možemo osjetiti ogromno žaljenje. Možete slučajno kliknuti na "odgovori svima" na email i uništiti nekome vezu. Ili samo imati nevjerojatno neugodan dan na poslu. Ili imati posljednji dan na poslu.
And this doesn't even touch on the really profound regrets of a life. Because of course, sometimes we do make decisions that have irrevocable and terrible consequences, either for our own or for other people's health and happiness and livelihoods, and in the very worst case scenario, even their lives. Now obviously, those kinds of regrets are incredibly piercing and enduring. I mean, even the stupid "reply all" regrets can leave us in a fit of excruciating agony for days.
A još nismo ni došli do zaista dubokog žaljenja. Jer naravno, ponekad zaista donosimo odluke koje imaju nepovratne i strašne posljedice, bilo za naše ili tuđe zdravlje, sreću i sredstva za život, a u najgorem slučaju, čak i za tuđe živote. Naravno, takvo je žaljenje nevjerojatno bolno i teško za trpjeti. Mislim, čak i zbog glupog "odgovaranja svima" možemo danima žaliti i biti u agoniji.
So how are we supposed to live with this? I want to suggest that there's three things that help us to make our peace with regret. And the first of these is to take some comfort in its universality. If you Google regret and tattoo, you will get 11.5 million hits. (Laughter) The FDA estimates that of all the Americans who have tattoos, 17 percent of us regret getting them. That is Johnny Depp and me and our seven million friends. And that's just regret about tattoos. We are all in this together.
I kako da onda živimo s tim? Smatram da postoje tri stvari koje nam pomažu da se pomirimo sa žaljenjem. Prva od njih jest da se utješimo univerzalnošću. Ako proguglate žaljenje i tetovaže, dobit ćete 11,5 milijuna rezultata. (Smijeh) Uprava za hranu i lijekove procjenjuje da od svih Amerikanaca koji imaju tetovaže, nas 17 posto žali što ih je dalo napraviti. To smo Johnny Depp i ja i naših sedam milijuna prijatelja. A to je samo žaljenje zbog tetovaža. Svi smo u tome zajedno.
The second way that we can help make our peace with regret is to laugh at ourselves. Now in my case, this really wasn't a problem, because it's actually very easy to laugh at yourself when you're 29 years old and you want your mommy because you don't like your new tattoo. But it might seem like a kind of cruel or glib suggestion when it comes to these more profound regrets. I don't think that's the case though. All of us who've experienced regret that contains real pain and real grief understand that humor and even black humor plays a crucial role in helping us survive. It connects the poles of our lives back together, the positive and the negative, and it sends a little current of life back into us.
Drugi način na koji se možemo nositi sa žaljenjem jest da se smijemo samima sebi. U mojem slučaju to i nije bio problem jer je zapravo vrlo lako smijati se sam sebi kad imaš 29 godina i hoćeš svoju mamu jer ti se ne sviđa tvoja nova tetovaža. No, to može biti okrutan i površan prijedlog kad se radi o većem, dubljem žaljenju. No, ne mislim da je to tako. Svi mi koji smo iskusili žaljenje s pravom boli i pravom tugom razumijemo da humor i čak i crni humor imaju ključnu ulogu u našem preživljavanju. Pomažu nam da ponovno pohvatamo konce života, i pozitivne i negativne, i ponovno pomalo vraća život u nas.
The third way that I think we can help make our peace with regret is through the passage of time, which, as we know, heals all wounds -- except for tattoos, which are permanent. So it's been several years since I got my own tattoo. And do you guys just want to see it? All right. Actually, you know what, I should warn you, you're going to be disappointed. Because it's actually not that hideous. I didn't tattoo Marilyn Manson's face on some indiscreet part of myself or something. When other people see my tattoo, for the most part they like how it looks. It's just that I don't like how it looks. And as I said earlier, I'm a perfectionist. But I'll let you see it anyway.
Treći način na koji mislim da se možemo nositi sa žaljenjem jest kroz tijek vremena, koje, kao što znamo, liječi sve rane -- osim tetovaža, koje su trajne. Prošlo je nekoliko godina otkad sam se tetovirala. Želite li vidjeti tetovažu? U redu. Zapravo, znate što, moram vas upozoriti, bit ćete razočarani. Jer zapravo uopće nije toliko ružna. Nisam istetovirala lice Marilyna Mansona na nekom nepristojnom dijelu tijela ili tako nešto. Kad drugi ljudi vide moju tetovažu, uglavnom im se sviđa kako izgleda. Ali stvar je u tome da se meni ne sviđa. A, kao što sam ranije rekla, ja sam perfekcionist. Ali ipak ću vam je pokazati.
This is my tattoo. I can guess what some of you are thinking. So let me reassure you about something. Some of your own regrets are also not as ugly as you think they are. I got this tattoo because I spent most of my 20s living outside the country and traveling. And when I came and settled in New York afterward, I was worried that I would forget some of the most important lessons that I learned during that time. Specifically the two things I learned about myself that I most didn't want to forget was how important it felt to keep exploring and, simultaneously, how important it is to somehow keep an eye on your own true north. And what I loved about this image of the compass was that I felt like it encapsulated both of these ideas in one simple image. And I thought it might serve as a kind of permanent mnemonic device.
Ovo je moja tetovaža. Pogađam što neki od vas misle. Budite uvjereni u jedno. Neke od stvari zbog kojih žalite također nisu toliko ružne koliko vi to mislite. Dala sam napraviti ovu tetovažu jer sam većinu svojih 20-ih godina živjela u inozemstvu i putovala. Kad sam se vratila živjeti u New York nakon toga, bojala sam se da ću zaboraviti neke od najvažnijih stvari koje sam naučila tijekom tog vremena. Konkretno, dvije stvari koje sam naučila o sebi i koje pogotovo nisam htjela zaboraviti bile su koliko je važno nastaviti istraživati i, istovremeno, koliko je važno nekako paziti na svoj vlastiti pravi sjever. Ono što mi se svidjelo na ovom kompasu bilo je to što je obuhvaćao te obje ideje u jednoj jednostavnoj slici. Mislila sam da bi mi mogao služiti kao trajni podsjetnik.
Well it did. But it turns out, it doesn't remind me of the thing I thought it would; it reminds me constantly of something else instead. It actually reminds me of the most important lesson regret can teach us, which is also one of the most important lessons life teaches us. And ironically, I think it's probably the single most important thing I possibly could have tattooed onto my body -- partly as a writer, but also just as a human being. Here's the thing, if we have goals and dreams, and we want to do our best, and if we love people and we don't want to hurt them or lose them, we should feel pain when things go wrong. The point isn't to live without any regrets. The point is to not hate ourselves for having them.
Pa, i služio je. Ali na kraju me ne podsjeća na ono što sam mislila. Umjesto toga, podsjeća me na nešto drugo. Zapravo me podsjeća na najvažniju stvar koju možemo naučiti iz žaljenja, a koja je jedna od najvažnijih stvari koje nas i život nauči. Ironično, mislim da je to vjerojatno najvažnija stvar koju sam uopće mogla istetovirati na svoje tijelo -- djelomično kao spisateljica, ali isto tako i kao ljudsko biće. Evo u čemu je stvar. Ako imamo ciljeve i snove i želimo dati sve od sebe i ako volimo ljude i ne želimo ih povrijediti ni izgubiti, trebamo osjećati bol kad stvari pođu po zlu. Nije poanta u tome da živimo život bez žaljenja. Poanta je da ne mrzimo sebe zbog toga.
The lesson that I ultimately learned from my tattoo and that I want to leave you with today is this: We need to learn to love the flawed, imperfect things that we create and to forgive ourselves for creating them. Regret doesn't remind us that we did badly. It reminds us that we know we can do better.
Ono što sam na kraju naučila iz svoje tetovaže i ono što vam danas želim poručiti jest ovo: moramo naučiti voljeti nesavršene, pogrešne stvari koje radimo i oprostiti sami sebi što smo ih napravili. Žaljenje nas ne podsjeća da smo učinili nešto loše. Podsjeća nas da znamo da možemo bolje.
Thank you.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)