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No Regrets: It Is Simply About Saying Yes to Life
The music of return: finding our way back to life
Some songs find us at precisely the right moment. We may have known them for years, humming their melodies without paying much attention to their lyrics, until something in our own experience suddenly makes their meaning impossible to ignore. This happened to me while thinking about the Return, the final stage of the Hero's Journey that we are exploring through music in this year's MythBlast. What does it mean to return after being transformed by life's challenges? And how do we recognize the person we have become when we look back at the road that brought us here?
My first impulse, once again (I know, I know), was to write about Frank Sinatra's “My Way,” a song I continue to love. It celebrates the freedom of taking responsibility for one's life rather than measuring it exclusively against other people's expectations. From a Jungian perspective, this might suggest a growing awareness of who we are and of the choices that have shaped us. Yet autonomy alone seemed insufficient. For Joseph Campbell, the hero's journey is not simply a story of individual achievement; the Return also involves bringing something of value back to the world.
So I returned to the drawing board.
I considered Louis Armstrong's “What a Wonderful World,” another song I absolutely love. After extraordinary challenges, the hero may discover that the treasure need not lie in some distant place. It can be found in the ordinary world, now seen with renewed eyes. The journey does not necessarily take us away from everyday life; it can return us to it with a new capacity for wonder. Yet, amid news of protests across Europe over education, living conditions, and economic hardship, the song's optimism did not feel quite right. How can we say yes to life when the world gives us so many reasons to say no?
Leonard Cohen's “Anthem” seemed closer. Its invitation to accept imperfection without surrendering hope brought to mind kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold. The cracks are not concealed; they become part of the object's history. Perhaps the Return is not a triumphant homecoming after a decisive victory, but a more humble recognition that we can carry our wounds without allowing them to define us.
Then I remembered a musical about Edith Piaf I had recently attended. Her “Non, je ne regrette rien” immediately struck me as the song I had been searching for.
Saying yes, even when life hurts
One of the ideas that has stayed with me from Campbell's The Power of Myth is the invitation to say yes to life. It sounds simple, almost reassuring. But saying yes does not guarantee an easy journey. Sometimes it means taking risks, making mistakes, experiencing heartbreak, and discovering that the life we chose is far more complicated than we imagined.
I know something about that. I myself have been divorced twice. Yet I would not be who I am today—or be writing this MythBlast—if it were not for everything I have lived through. In my own private fantasy, I might have married my college sweetheart, and we might have lived happily ever after. But we didn't. Full stop. Life took a different turn, and I had to learn to embrace the life I actually lived rather than the one I had imagined. None of us would be doing precisely what we are doing now had we consistently said no to life whenever it called us to another adventure.
Piaf sings:
Non, rien de rien
Non, je ne regrette rien
Ni le bien, qu'on m'a fait
Ni le mal, tout ça m'est bien égal
This free translation does little justice to the French lyrics, where rien de rien has a rhythm and insistence of its own. But here goes: “No, nothing at all. No, I regret nothing. Neither the good that was done to me nor the bad; it is all the same to me.”
The declaration is bold, almost provocative. Does it mean that nothing matters, that our choices have no consequences, or that suffering can simply be dismissed? I don't think so. To me, the song speaks instead of a refusal to let the past determine the possibilities of the present.
This is an important distinction. Saying yes to life does not mean approving of everything that has happened to us, excusing those who have harmed us, or pretending that painful experiences were necessary. Nor does it mean remaining in situations that diminish us. Sometimes saying yes requires leaving, grieving, establishing boundaries, or accepting that a cherished dream will not come true.
The point is not that everything happens for a reason. It is that, whatever has happened, life remains open to new possibilities.
The point is not that everything happens for a reason. It is that, whatever has happened, life remains open to new possibilities.
From a Jungian perspective, this openness resonates with individuation, the lifelong process of becoming more conscious of ourselves and developing a more integrated relationship with the unconscious. Such a process does not eliminate conflict or vulnerability. It asks us to recognize the different parts of ourselves, including those we would rather disown, and to take responsibility for the life that takes shape through their integration.
We cannot undo our history. But we can change our relationship with it.
The Return: beginning again without erasing the past
In Campbell's account of the Hero's Journey, returning home is not simply a matter of retracing one's steps. The hero has crossed a threshold, faced trials, and encountered something that transforms the meaning of the familiar world. Now comes another challenge: bringing that experience back into ordinary life. Sometimes, the hero returns with treasure; sometimes, with nothing but ashes in hand. The world may look much the same, and those who stayed behind may not understand what has changed.
The task is to live differently in the same world. And, paradoxically, that is precisely how we change the world.
This is what makes the Return so compelling. Transformation is not complete merely because we have survived an ordeal or discovered something about ourselves. It becomes meaningful through the way we inhabit our relationships, make our choices, and participate in the world afterward. The treasure brought home may be wisdom, compassion, courage, or simply a greater capacity to accept the complexity of being human.
Our perceptions of the past vary enormously, and our memories themselves change over time. Some people carry deep regrets about their choices. Others seem largely indifferent to what has come before. And some recognize that saying yes to life brought them into difficult situations, left them with emotional scars, and changed them in ways they could never have anticipated—yet they continue to live as fully as they can.
Not everyone has faced circumstances as dramatic as Piaf's. Some have. Her life, marked by hardship and artistic achievement, gives the song a particular force. When she declares that she regrets nothing, we might hear not the voice of someone untouched by suffering, but that of someone who refuses to let suffering have the final word.
The Return is not a return to innocence. We cannot unknow what we have learned or become who we were before our experiences changed us. We return carrying our history, with its losses, mistakes, joys, and unexpected gifts. The task is to make room for that history without becoming imprisoned by it.
The song's final lines make this movement especially clear:
Non, rien de rien
Non, je ne regrette rien
Car ma vie, car mes joies
Aujourd'hui, ça commence avec toi
“No, nothing at all. No, I regret nothing. For my life, for my joys, today begins with you.”
Having declared her independence from the weight of the past, Piaf turns toward the present and another person. Life and joy begin again through connection. This final gesture takes the song beyond individual defiance: it suggests that even after everything we have experienced, we can remain open to love, encounter, and the unknown.
Perhaps this is also why “Non, je ne regrette rien” speaks to me so powerfully. It does not ask us to imagine a life without mistakes, heartbreak, or disappointment. It asks whether we can embrace the life we have actually lived rather than endlessly bargaining with the life we might have had.
The truth is, we cannot return to the beginning and make different choices. But we can always begin again from where we stand.
The Return, therefore, is not the end of the journey. It is the moment when we discover that the journey has changed the way we inhabit the world. We carry the darkness we have encountered, the cracks through which light has entered, and the knowledge that no life can be lived without uncertainty.
Sometimes, after everything we have been through, the most heroic thing we can do is begin again—and say yes to life, once more.
MythBlast authored by:
Monica Martinez is a Brazilian writer, researcher, and professor whose work bridges communication, narrative, and Jungian psychology. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of São Paulo (ECA-USP) and a postdoctoral degree from UMESP, exploring how stories shape identity and transformation. A clinical psychologist and Jungian analyst trained by IJEP, she maintains a private practice in São Paulo. Martinez teaches at the University of Sorocaba (Uniso) and coordinates the JORLIT research group on Literary Journalism and Transformative Narratives. In 2024, she completed her second postdoctoral project at Universidade Fernando Pessoa in Portugal, expanding her inquiry across oceans. She has authored several books and articles on literary journalism and psychological storytelling. Mother of Laura, 28, she believes in the enduring magic of narratives to heal, guide, and renew the human spirit.
This MythBlast was inspired by the Return stage of the hero's journey and The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
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Latest Podcast
What happens when music becomes more than something we listen to - when it becomes a way of experiencing wonder, transformation, and connection? In this episode of The Podcast with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell Foundation Executive Director John Bucher sits down with musician, DJ, producer, and multimedia artist Chris Holmes. Best known as Paul McCartney's longtime touring DJ, Chris has spent decades working alongside some of the most influential artists in music, including The Smashing Pumpkins, Daft Punk, Beck, and Radiohead. His creative journey has taken him from recording studios and concert stages to immersive multimedia experiences exploring the relationship between art, technology, and consciousness. A lifelong admirer of Joseph Campbell, Chris brings his fascination with mythology, storytelling, and the transformative power of music into his current project, Fascinated by Everything. Together, John and Chris explore music as a form of modern ritual, the relationship between artists and shamans, the experience of creative flow, and how Campbell's ideas about following your bliss and the Hero's Journey have influenced Chris's life and work. Their conversation invites us to consider creativity not simply as something we do, but as a way of engaging more deeply with life—following our curiosity, embracing the unexpected, and discovering meaning along the way.
This Week's Highlights
"Nietzsche . . . says if you fail to affirm everything in your life that has come to you with amor fati (“the love of your fate”), you have unraveled the whole life. Any significant moment in your life, if it had been the least bit different, the whole life is different from there on. If you say no to any detail of your life, you’ve said no to the whole web because everything is so interlocked."
-- Joseph Campbell
Myth and Meaning, 213
