Spoiler alert: This text reveals key plot factors of the April 9, 2023, episode of Succession.
Our work lives are advanced and demanding, and powerful feelings usually have an effect on how we navigate these challenges. One robust emotion — remorse — is on show on this week’s episode of Succession, titled “Connor’s Wedding ceremony.” The episode raises a number of concepts we are able to all use to take care of remorse and use it as a possible drive for good.
Aboard their brother’s wedding ceremony yacht, Kendall, Roman, and Shiv Roy obtain the devastating information that their father, Logan, is dying — or, extra doubtless, is already lifeless — whereas on a flight to Europe. As a flight attendant administers chest compressions, Shiv’s estranged husband Tom holds the cellphone to Logan’s ear, so the youngsters can converse to their father. Their expressions convey remorse — the conclusion, maybe, that they missed earlier alternatives to precise their love for Logan, regardless of treachery and dissatisfaction on each side.
Analysis means that the kind of remorse that the Roy siblings appear to really feel stems from the self-blame that comes from recognizing our current actuality may need been higher if we had made totally different selections. Trying again on the previous and wishing we had finished issues in another way is a common human experience. We most frequently remorse making poor selections in {our relationships}, careers, and schooling. Trying again years later, we’d kick ourselves for not taking an thrilling job supply or not following a considerably dangerous dream or not telling others how we actually really feel about them. We are inclined to remorse the issues we didn’t do greater than the issues we did do, research finds. Specifically, we remorse failing to stop a damaging final result, like not expressing like to somebody who has since handed away.
Many students have proposed that the aim of remorse is to immediate us to establish our errors and keep away from repeating them sooner or later. By recognizing the place we went unsuitable, we are able to take steps towards private development and enchancment. Certainly, individuals who categorical remorse concerning the previous usually tend to envision methods to improve in the future. This discovering led researchers to conclude that totally embracing and experiencing our regrets often is the key to rising above them.
All through the episode, there are moments that present us how we are able to reply to remorse in a means that lowers its depth and permits us to deal with different elements of our lives.
Discover closure.
When Tom calls the Roy siblings, he tells them that their father is “very, very sick,” and describes the scenario as “very, very unhealthy.” Although Logan has doubtless already handed, Tom creates a chance for the youngsters to attempt to attain closure by providing to carry the cellphone subsequent to their father’s ear, to allow them to share a number of final phrases. Kendall, Roman, and Shiv every wrestle to inform their father that they love him — and to resolve whether or not to forgive him for his betrayals. “I can’t forgive you,” Kendall says, “however it’s OK and I like you.”
Closure is the method of resolving unfinished enterprise or reaching a way of finality or acceptance a couple of scenario or occasion. When individuals really feel like they’ve reached closure, they’re extra prone to really feel a way of decision and fewer remorse concerning the previous.
Whereas remorse can function a strong motivator for corrective action, it’s best within the quick time period, earlier than we imagine we’ve misplaced the chance to repair a scenario. The scene by which the siblings are confronted with the loss of life of their father is a dramatic reminder to precise our true emotions relatively than letting essential moments slip away. Will remorse lead Logan’s kids to take a unique strategy to their shut relationships and the best way they work? It will likely be fascinating to see whether or not their remorse has lasting results.
Get a long way.
Logan’s eldest son, Connor, is knowledgeable about his father’s passing as one thing of an afterthought. When he lastly hears the information, Connor’s first response is, “He by no means even appreciated me.”
With these phrases, Connor is participating in what psychologists name motivated reasoning — a cognitive course of by which individuals use their preexisting beliefs to interpret data in a means that helps these beliefs.
If we use it to disregard or downplay proof that contradicts our beliefs, this course of generally results in biased pondering, flawed decision-making, or inaccurate judgments, However, in some instances, motivated reasoning will be useful as a result of it supplies individuals with a way of course and objective. For instance, if an individual is motivated by a specific objective, akin to reaching success of their profession or making a constructive impression on society, they could use motivated reasoning to persuade themselves that their actions are the suitable ones to realize that objective. This can assist them to remain centered, motivated, and chronic within the pursuit of their targets. Connor doubtless needed to have a contented wedding ceremony (his objective that day), with out being distracted by the extremely unhappy information of his father passing.
In the same means, motivated reasoning can even assist us attain extra constructive conclusions about damaging conditions and create a long way from the ache these conditions create. It does so partly by selling optimism and resilience. For instance, research has discovered that individuals who have been inspired to have interaction in constructive pondering following a anxious occasion confirmed better resilience and reported fewer damaging feelings over time than those that weren’t inspired to have interaction in constructive pondering. By taking a look at a damaging scenario and reframing in in a means that makes us really feel higher, as Connor did when reacting to his father’s loss of life, we are able to cut back the depth of the remorse we really feel.
Motivated reasoning can even give us distance from damaging and traumatic occasions. This distance can allow us to understand the complete that means of what’s occurring, research finds. And it additionally helps us handle any sense of remorse we might really feel.
Embrace compartmentalization.
The information of their father’s passing is, understandably, devastating to the youngsters. However Waystar Royco executives quickly remind them that they should make consequential choices for the enterprise, akin to learn how to reveal Logan’s loss of life to the world. The information will affect the market and board choices concerning the firm’s management going ahead. At a time when the Roys are feeling disoriented and deeply unhappy, they should discover readability.
Kendall, specifically, exhibits some capacity to have interaction in compartmentalization when telling his brother and sister what must be finished to maintain their enterprise choices open for the longer term. His combined feelings about his dad — and his personal ruthlessness — doubtless play a job in his capacity to compartmentalize. “What we do as we speak will all the time be what we did the day our father died,” he says. “So, you recognize, let’s grieve and no matter, however not do something that restricts our future freedom of motion.”
Compartmentalization, or the act of separating totally different elements of our lives into distinct psychological compartments, permits us to handle stress and preserve a way of management over our lives. It’s additionally a protection mechanism we use, whereby conflicting ideas and feelings are consciously or unconsciously separated or remoted from one another inside our thoughts.
Compartmentalization can cut back remorse by serving to us keep away from dwelling on damaging experiences or choices that we might have made in a single space of our life. For instance, if somebody makes a poor determination at work that ends in damaging penalties, they are able to compartmentalize that have and never let it impression their private life or different elements of their work.
When we are able to compartmentalize our thoughts and emotions, we’re higher capable of clear up advanced issues and assume creatively. And by separating totally different domains of our lives, akin to work and household, we are able to keep away from changing into overwhelmed by the calls for of anybody space. This can assist us keep centered and productive with out neglecting our private life.
Compartmentalization can even assist us set and obtain targets. By breaking down bigger targets into smaller, extra manageable duties, we are able to higher focus our efforts and make progress towards our targets. Plus, compartmentalization can assist us keep motivated and engaged by offering a way of accomplishment and progress as we transfer via every job. Whereas compartmentalization isn’t the answer to every problem, it may be a invaluable instrument for sustaining stability and reaching success in our work and private lives.
By adopting these methods for coping with remorse, we are able to flip a damaging emotion into a strong motivator for development and alter. Because the Roy household navigates the aftermath of Logan’s loss of life, we’ll see whether or not remorse shapes any of their future choices. Will they let it devour them, or will they channel it into one thing constructive? It’s a tantalizing query that has us eagerly anticipating future episodes.