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Tattoos and the power of embracing regret

Part 4 of the TED Radio Hour episode “The skin we’re in

We’re told to avoid regret, to move forward — but author Kathryn Schulz disagrees. For her, regret lets us love “the imperfect things that we create and to forgive ourselves for creating them.”

About Kathryn Schulz

Kathryn Schulz is a journalist and author. She is a staff writer at The New Yorker and she won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing in 2016. She is the author of Lost and Found and Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error. Previously, she worked as a book critic for New York Magazine, an editor of Grist, and a reporter and editor for The Santiago Times.

This segment of TED Radio Hour was produced by Matthew Cloutier and edited by Sanaz Meshkinpour. You can follow us on Facebook @TEDRadioHour and email us at [email protected].

Web Resources

Related TED Bio: Kathryn Schulz

Related TED Talk: 4 kinds of regret — and what they teach you about yourself

Related TED Talk: The price of shame

Related NPR Links

Life Kit: How to make decisions you won’t regret

All Things Considered: Zadie Smith ponders the nature of regret

Life Kit: 11 ways NPR readers resist the impulse to shop

Copyright 2025 NPR

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Manoush Zomorodi is the host of TED Radio Hour. She is a journalist, podcaster and media entrepreneur, and her work reflects her passion for investigating how technology and business are transforming humanity.

Zomorodi is a co-founder of Stable Genius Productions and is the co-host and co-creator of ZigZag, the business podcast about being human. She also created, hosted, and was managing editor of the podcast Note to Self in partnership with WNYC Studios, which was named Best Tech Podcast of 2017 by The Academy of Podcasters.

Prior to her time at WNYC, Zomorodi reported and produced around the world for BBC News and Thomson Reuters, including a few years in Berlin.

She was named one of Fast Company's 100 Most Creative People in Business for 2018 and has received numerous awards for her work, including The Gracie for Best Radio Host in 2014 and 2018. Her book "Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Creative Self" (2017, St. Martin's Press) and her TED Talk are guides to surviving information overload and the "Attention Economy."

Zomorodi received a bachelor's degree from Georgetown University in English and fine arts. She is half-Persian and half-Swiss but was born in New York City, where she lives with her family.

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