Raghavendra Chaturvedi

Besides movement, growth, reproduction, adaptability and other biological activities the most important and inherent features of life that lie deep within the living beings are their ability to have feelings and exhibit expressions.

Unlike other animals, perhaps humans have most advanced version of a natural soft-ware that makes them able to sense and express effectively (or quite possibly human soft-ware is not that sensitive to sense and understand the expression of most of other animals` natural feelings and expressions and also may be of non-living things too).

This article is limited to the human senses….feelings and expressions, and more specifically to the two commonly confusing words representing emotions of Guilts and Regrets.

Our emotions of Guilts and Regrets are so finely camouflaged that we generally remain confused of them unless we closely analyze them. Differentiation becomes easy if we try to understand their origin and nature.

Regrets

In our day to day life, in routine situations during our regular activities at common places (in offices, public places and many times at our homes too) we use the phrase “I regret “ or we encounter listening to it.

The word `Regret` sounds more of super-facial in nature. It neither really carries the emotions with it nor express gravity of the situation that leads it to originate. Its expression is not intense and sharp. Then what does that mean?

In fact, it is a thoughtful expression of casual approach and it originates from brain after a complex analytical processing of the situation and related consequences. When someone expresses regret, most often it is meant for outer world (individual receivers) to receive. Only in some special situations the originator and receiver of the feelings of regret is one and the same individual.

Since regrets do not originate from depth of the heart/soul, they are not inner-voices. They stay at the crust; they are short-lived and disappear quickly as soon as the exposure with the situation ends. This is why we cannot memorize how many times we have used such expressions in our life.

Another aspect related to regrets is that they most often are related to the occurrence of a situation that actually resulted due to taking of some actions (mistakes) by the originator, and for that regrets are expressed. Many times the regrets for specific actions are repeated by the originator in his/her span of life, because such mistakes happen again and again.

Guilts

There exist few emotions lying deep within every one of us and we rarely disclose those to others. Even, we ourselves revisit them only in some special situations/circumstances, though they always remain present in our memories.

These emotions originate from the core of our hearts/souls and are results of occurrence of some incidents of highly important emotional values to us. The churning of emotions leads us to relook our actions or in-actions within ourselves with respect to happening of a painful occurrence of the incident. This out-burst of emotions leave a footprint/impression of permanent nature deep within us. These emotions are very intense and sharp and their counts are very short. Once, triggered these emotions take time to subside. We find ourselves responsible for the painful incident due to our actions or in-actions (taken by us either knowingly or un-knowingly), and we continue to live with such emotions. Guilts are perhaps the most painful companions till death.

Raghavendra Chaturvedi, born in Kanpur, hails from a small town called Etawah (Uttar Pradesh). He received his education from Etawah and Agra. Coming from a family of academicians, he carries strong values of humanity and religion.
Armed with Master’s degree in Sociology and Organic Chemistry, Raghavendra has worked in a variety of fields ranging from Fine Chemicals, Genetic Intermediate, Active Pharmaceuticals (Bulk Drugs), Polymer Coatings and Fashion Technology.

Raghavendra’s professional journey has been very dynamic. On one hand, his profession entailed working on the ‘tricky’ chemistry of highly sensitive molecules like genetic intermediates of DNA, RNA and Proteins, and highly reactive & explosive chemicals and intermediates. On the other hand, he also worked in the areas of lifesaving drugs like Penicillin and Cephalosporin Antibiotics.
His post voluntary retirement engagement includes freelancing as a technocrat-consultant to business houses.
He may be reached at : raghavendrachaturvedi@yahoo.in