Regrets and lessons

I was struck recently by something that one of my friends on myspace posted about a week ago and I've been mulling it over in my head ever since. It's something I've heard other people say throughout my life and it's just never quite rubbed me the right way.

"No regrets, only lessons learned."

I understand the sentiment here, but I can't say I agree with it. A friend in high school explained it to me this way: why regret something that you thought was the best decision at the time?

Personally, I find this to be a very immature and somewhat flippant way of looking at life. By taking this view, one tries to lessen the impact of wrong decisions and stupid mistakes one has made. It's taking the easy way out, or at least the less painful way. No one (I hope) actually enjoys feeling guilty or bad about something, but by taking this stance one tries to avoid any real feelings of guilt or blame in an attempt to feel better about a bad decision or (sometimes accidental) mistake.
Certainly lessons are learned from mistakes, but can we truly have the lesson drilled home if there is no regret? It's easy to feel guilty for awhile and try not to make the same mistakes again, but once the feelings have passed and the waters are calm again, it's easy to forget said lesson and make the same mistake again.
I myself am guilty of this on many counts.

Certainly we feel bad when we hurt someone we love, and we try not to do it again. But by learning not so say something in a certain way or do something that hurts, should we really not regret having hurt them in the first place?

I feel the answer to that question is a definite NO. Of course you should regret having hurt someone, or having made a decision that hurt yourself in someway. There are certainly wrong things I have done that I knew were wrong and I didn't truly regret them (which is bad on my part), and there are also many stupid things that I have done and learned from but still deeply regret.
-I regret not helping that man all those years ago.
-I regret saying damaging things to my brother and that girl back in middle school.
-I regret not working harder in school.
-I deeply regret a certain relationship I had my first year and change of college and the decisions I made during that time. I deprived myself of a truly special experience and also added a great deal of extremely unwanted baggage to my life.
-I also deeply regret and will forever be sorry for the many ways in which I have hurt my husband, the man I love and value most. I did it always unconsciously, but is that really any better? In some ways it might be worse than purposefully harming someone, I'm not sure. Even though I've been forgiven time and again, I will always regret and feel sorry for those things.
Yes certainly I've learned from those mistakes, but to not face them with more than an "I'm sorry" somehow cheapens the other person's feelings.
-I regret the thoughtless acts that led to hurting my dad last summer. Again, not on purpose, but no better for that.

Not regretting an action to me says that you don't really feel all that sorry for it. How can you truly learn then? In Catholicism (from what I understand) just saying your Hail Marys and confessing is not enough to get you off the hook for a sin. You have to truly repent before you can be forgiven, and really even before you can start to feel a little bit better about it. I think that's a pretty good way of looking at wrong doings. Just saying I'm sorry and I won't (or will try not to) do it again isn't enough, and shouldn't be enough. I believe the larger Eastern religions are on the same or at least near by page with that philosophy. (Reese? You would know better than I.)

By trying to avoid guilt and merely saying you've learned your lesson is avoiding the very thing you should be looking at. How can you become a better person unless you really examine your own faults and wrong doings? How can you truly heal unless you take responsibility? How can you grow? It's something I've been trying to do in order to become a better person, and I think it's something everyone should do, or at least try. It's painful and it can be lenthy, but you'd be surprised what it can do for you.
Going through life with such a nonchalant outlook just seems to me to be a shallow and unconcerned way of living. Certainly you can't go through life weighed down by all your regrets. What kind of life would that be? However, unless you truly examine, feel sorry for, and in some way repent (to yourself, God, or another person) for your wrong doings, I don't think it's any way to truly live and in the end be happy with the way you've handled your life.

I'm not really sure if I've even expressed my thoughts and feelings the way I want to. I'm having trouble putting my thoughts into words and making it sound coherent and non-repetitive. It's just something I've been thinking on for awhile now and wanted to share.