As with any good piece of literature, The Midnight Library makes you think. And think I did.
The book was an easy read, nothing particularly awe-inspiring, but it left me with a quiet itch under my skin. Enough to linger. Enough to make me uncomfortable in a way that felt familiar.
As I began to explore the psychology of regret alongside the book, questions surfaced almost immediately. Where does regret come from? Why do we fantasize about the lives we never lived? And why is it that I don’t want to undo any part of my past, yet I feel drawn to futures I never explored, paths I never took, outcomes I’ll never know?
I don’t even know if those imagined lives would have been successful. And still, instead of wanting to erase my mistakes or undo my worst moments, I find myself more curious about the unfinished roads.
Regret, at best, is controversial.
Some argue that regret is inherently negative, problematic even. When we remain stuck ruminating on the past, research suggests we experience lower life satisfaction and struggle to cope with present challenges. Others argue that regret serves a purpose. It can generate counterfactual thinking: the mental act of imagining alternative outcomes which can guide future decisions. If I regret spending too much money eating out (*cough, cough), that discomfort might push me to change my behavior the following month.
So what actually is regret?
According to the Oxford dictionary, regret is defined as feeling sad, repentant, or disappointed over something that has happened or been done. The word itself traces back to old Germanic roots meaning to weep. In French, it stems from lament, before making its way into English as “regret.”
Whew. That’s a mouthful.
At its core, regret is framed as grief over something that has happened. But here’s the twist (and…sorry!….spoiler alert) in The Midnight Library the protagonist isn’t mourning what was. She’s haunted by what never came to be.
And when I look inward, I realize I feel the same. I don’t want to undo my life. I want to try on the versions of myself that never existed. That’s when something began to take shape for me:
Regret is less about fixing the past and more about negotiating identity, culture, and the futures we may have never been given permission to imagine.
This isn’t a book review.
This is about unlived selves, cultural obligation, and the quiet despair of paths that were never taken.
In that sense, regret, at least to me, can be beneficial. It forces reflection. It invites questions. It can trigger reparative action and adaptive behavior. It helps us problem-solve not by erasing the past, but by making meaning of it.
But regret is not a universal experience.
Culture sits at the center of how regret is experienced, and that experience can look drastically different depending on how and where you were raised. In highly individualistic cultures, often associated with Western or Caucasian norms, regret often centers on personal fulfillment: What did I miss? What didn’t I choose for myself?
In collectivist cultures, such as many Latino and Asian communities, regret is more relational. It’s tied to responsibility, group harmony, and duty. Growing up, I can recall countless moments where decisions were framed not around how I would feel, but around how others might be affected.
Ambition, too, is framed differently. Not as something to chase freely, but something to weigh carefully against family needs, expectations, and stability. What pays well? Why didn’t we invite our siblings to go with us? Dreams are often postponed, redirected, or softened in the name of responsibility.
Research suggests that cultures emphasizing personal autonomy may intensify feelings of failure because choices are understood as entirely one’s own. When fulfillment doesn’t follow, the burden is heavy. Which is where regret is often seen as negative, one’s personal miscalculations. And yet, after reading The Midnight Library, that wasn’t the failure I felt. Because I don’t come from a individualist culture.
What I felt was absence.
The lives not lived.
The careers not pursued.
The ambitions never fully claimed.
Which leaves me wondering: in collectivist cultures, is regret delayed? Muted? Redirected? Do we feel it later, once the obligations have been met and the noise quiets? Or do we carry it quietly, disguising it as gratitude, practicality, or acceptance?
Maybe regret doesn’t always scream.
Maybe sometimes it waits.
In my own family, regret isn’t necessarily hidden, but it isn’t named directly either. It’s often softened through faith, reframed as God’s will or if it’s meant to be, it will be.
I also recognize that this experience shifted across generations. My older siblings carried the weight of collectivist expectations more fully, growing up in a time when choices felt narrower and responsibility heavier. By the time my sister and I were coming of age, they became our quiet advocates, encouraging us to experience more freely.
I am deeply grateful to them for that. And yet, gratitude does not erase reality. Living at home to support family, weighing decisions against collective needs, these were still lived experiences. The expectations softened, but they did not disappear.
I do believe regret in collectivist cultures often arrives later in life, after duty has been fulfilled. You follow the right path. You make the choices your parents ask of you. You grow, you learn, you do what is expected. And then, eventually, there is a pause.
Oh.
Wait.
What if?
When I ask myself what unlived version of me still asks to be seen, the answer isn’t a single profession or title. It’s something quieter and harder to name. The desire to create, to write, to do something that feels awe-inspiring.
I was often told I was meant for success. But that raises another question altogether: how do we define success, and who gets to decide?
I don’t know what I am saying with all this. That more books need to be written with a cultural lens? I’ll start working on it (ha). I guess I don’t walk away from The Midnight Library wanting to undo my life. I walk away wanting to understand it more fully, the choices I made, the ones I didn’t, and the cultural stories that shaped both. I want to understand because that’s human nature. I want to understand so that it can affect my teaching in a positive way. Especially for the students who look like me and don’t understand all the littlest of things just yet.
I want to understand so that I can become a better version of myself.
Regret, I’m learning, doesn’t always mean something went wrong. Sometimes it simply means something mattered. And success, like regret, is not universal. It is personal. Cultural. Contextual.
The work isn’t to erase regret, but to listen to it, not as a judgment, but as an invitation.
Maestra Veliz 