The Regret Rinse & Repeat Cycle
Some regrets come crashing in, loud and humiliating. For a story of financial fatigue, see The Day My Budget Died. For a look at self-deception, see The Lie I Told Myself.
Others… just loop.
The Familiar Pattern:
- I make a plan to fix everything.
- I follow it—for about four days.
- Something small derails me. A stressful day. A sale. A celebration.
- I spend. Again.
- I regret it. Again.
- I start over. Again.
It’s Not Dramatic. That’s Why It’s Dangerous.
Quiet regrets are the hardest to escape. No one else sees them. No one intervenes. You’re just stuck with yourself, circling.
The hardest regrets to break aren’t the big ones. It’s the ones that feel like "just how I am."
Ledger Lesson:
If your regret feels like déjà vu, it’s not a moral failure. It’s a pattern. And patterns aren’t broken by shame. They’re broken by friction—small roadblocks that interrupt the loop.
This post is part of the Regret Ledger — where we document financial déjà vu without judgment. For more on emotional spending, see The Revenge Spending Trap.