This is a subtle, but underappreciated sentiment. Hindsight is 20/20. Beating yourself up when things don't go your way is a destructive form of regret. Learning from your decisions to get better at forward prediction is more constructive.
Even in those cases, you can learn empathy and perspective. Introspection, understanding what you were feeling and why you acted/reacted the way you did is opportunity for growth.
A lot of times, you can trace it back to a root insecurity, jealousy, or fear.
The alternative seems quite self-obsessed, too. When people who have hurt others, and then reformed, say that they have no regrets because everything that happened made them the person they are today, that is a big red flag to me (unless 'the person they are today' really has done some amazingly altruistic things to make amends). It comes across almost solipsistic, like the only thing that matters is their own character and their own story.
edit: and of course, 'people who have hurt others' encompasses all of us, to greater or lesser degrees. I'm not saying that none of us should be happy with who we are, or that we should never admit that we think things turned out for the best, weighing the good against the bad. But surely most of us have some things we really would do differently if we had our time again.
I regret a thing, because it impacted someone else. Evaluating it as solely as my personal growth opportunity strikes me as royally selfish. Whatever I learned from that does not undo said impact.
