Big decisions make me nervous. I’m okay when it comes to ordering dinner or buying a new pair of jeans, but if I’m selecting a h

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问题     Big decisions make me nervous. I’m okay when it comes to ordering dinner or buying a new pair of jeans, but if I’m selecting a house, a job, or even a mate, some part of me always wonders whether I’m making the best choice.
    It’s not that I’m a slave to perfection. It’s just that I’m simply trying to steer clear of future regrets and the anger, frustration, grief, and self-blame that accompany them and make regret such an unwelcome, energy-draining emotion.
    In the dark, long days of winter, it’s natural to spend time internally focused, looking back over our lives. Sifting through the past is how we find meaning, so we can enrich the days to come with greater wisdom and clarity. But sometimes this thought process turns on us, and regret takes on a life of its own, affecting our moods and health.
    Regret is one of the most felt but least discussed emotions. While directing a stress disorders clinic years ago, I became convinced that self-blame was one of the primary thought patterns that prevented emotional and even physical healing in my(mostly female)patients.
    Ruminating about how wrong or deficient you are(How could I have been so stupid? or What an idiot I am!)makes you feel small and ashamed. It pulls you out of the present and keeps you stuck in the past, destroys your peace of mind, and elevates the stress hormone Cortisol. High Cortisol levels, in turn, can undermine immunity, memory, metabolism, and even cardiac health.
    The first step to understanding regret in your own life is to learn how it works. Cornell University psychologist Thomas Gilovich says that regret comes in three emotional flavors: hot, wistful, and despairing. When the guy you’ve been dating turns out to be married, you’re likely to experience regret as the "hot" emotions of anger, embarrassment, and irritation.
    When you think about how fast your kids grew up and wish that you’d spent more time with them, your regrets will probably fall into the "wistful" category, where nostalgia and sentiment prevail. When you realize that you invested your pension with a con artist who skipped town, you may experience regret as helplessness and utter desperation.
    Gilovich also found that short-term regret is stronger for actions you took(you bought a fabulous pair of shoes that cost a week’s salary)than for inactions(you passed up those great shoes and wore your old ones to your best friend’s wedding). Conversely, long-term regret is stronger for actions and opportunities that you passed up(that person you didn’t date or the degree you never finished)than for actions you took.
If one wants to better understand regret, he should first know something about______.

选项 A、three emotional flavors
B、its working mechanism
C、its typical symptoms
D、its three categories

答案B

解析 根据第六段第一句“The first step to understanding regret in your own life is to learn how itworks”,B应为答案。
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