In the photo, we see a man wearing jeans, an unbuttoned plaid shirt over a dark sweater, and a ball cap. Behind him is a window with gold curtains. He is sprawled in an office chair, his work-booted left foot propped up on the desk. Off to the side is a credenza across which an American flag affixed to a ten-pound flagpole appears to have been dropped. At his waist is a concealed 950,000-volt stun gun.
The day is January 6, 2021. The chair, desk, and credenza are in the offices of then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in the United States Capital Building. It is the day the mob broke through the barricades, surged over the Capital steps, scrambled up the walls, and broke into the building, looting and vandalizing as they went. Five policemen died in the attack. Four more committed suicide over the next few months.
The man in the photograph is Richard Barnett. Before going to Washington, he shared various conspiracy theories and posted that the 2020 election was stolen. After leaving the Capital, he held up an envelope he'd taken from the Speaker's office and bragged to a cheering crowd that he'd left a quarter on the desk because he wasn't a thief. But as he left Washington, he turned off the location services on his cell phone and paid the tolls back to his home in Arkansas in cash.
Two days later, he was arrested. An Arkansas judge said he could be released and stay with his wife until his trial. But the judge overseeing the courthouse in Washington where the trials of the alleged rioters would be held disagreed and ordered that Barnett remain in jail pending his trial. Hearing what the Judge said about him, Barnett countered that he was “a good man.”
About four months later, while awaiting trial, Barnett was released after two other alleged rioters who also had carried stun guns were released. It was decided that stun guns were not as dangerous as actual guns. Barnett returned to Arkansas under conditional home confinement and electronic monitoring, along with a warning from the judge not to draw the wrong impression about his upcoming trial.
Several weeks later, Barnett began a fundraising campaign. A minimum donation of $100 would earn the donor an autographed copy of the infamous photo of him with his foot on the desk. Barnett did not have permission to use the copyrighted photograph.
Just over a year after the insurrection, jury selection for Barnett's trial was completed and the trial began. Sitting on the witness stand, when asked if he had any regrets, Barnett had replied in the affirmative, that although he still believed in the reasons he went to Washington, his language hadn’t been good. Throughout his trial, Barnett remained defiant and claimed a version of events contrary to the video evidence that was presented. After the trial, he called the police at the capital “thugs.”
On January 23, 2023, he was found guilty of the eight charges against him. In May of that year, he was sentenced to four and one-half years.
After Barnett had replied yes he had regrets when asked, he added a defense we may well have been tempted to use after a regrettable action, that it wasn't who we are. We say this to the one we hurt, whether as an apology or to try to explain what we did. We want to let them know that we are not like this. Or maybe we are saying it to ourselves, to convince ourselves that we are not that bad. That it was an aberration to our normal behavior, a one-time occurrence.
Basically, we're trying to convince everyone that we're not the kind of person who habitually makes a scene in public, breaks the law, or uses language our mother would be mortified to hear.
Whatever the reason for our actions, hopefully, it is followed by regret. The kind that comes after a truly unnerving act. The kind of regret that is so sobering that the more we think of what we did, the more we are motivated and then determined we become to change our thinking and our behavior. So unprecedented is our negative action that we never want to go through it again, never want to feel or act that way again.
Whether we can achieve this depends on the reason for and intensity of our regret. Are we sorry because we got caught and now face painful consequences? Is it because our actions negatively affected others, and now we're in trouble with them, too? Or is it because our behavior caused pain to others, and we feel deep regret?
The more we move along this spectrum of reasons from regret that we were caught to feeling remorse that we hurt others, the better our chances of learning and reforming. Hopefully, we land where our regret renders us shaken. As it washes over us, we are left bewildered and embarrassed. We vehemently declare, “This is really not who I am.” This level of regret can lead to reform because our next thought might be a heartfelt but if it is, it's not who I want to remain.
To reform, we need to remind ourselves that our regret does not simply involve recalling our actions and feeling bad. If this is all we do, we will just end up feeling guilty over past wrongs. Not only will this be unproductive, but it will plant bad seeds for more of the same behavior in the future. And there’s more! If we think about the wrongful deed, we will be mentally committing it again. If we think about it every day, we will mentally commit it every day. And we will plant even more seeds for such behavior.
What we need to do is decide how to go forward by learning to change. What can prevent us from carrying out our desired change? If all we do is relive what we've done, we're not fixing anything—we're brooding. When we brood, we're stuck. And we're planting more seeds for future suffering each time we relive what we had done. What we should try to do instead is move beyond regret and guilt, beyond brooding.
We do this by taking positive action and determining how to change. When we examine our belligerent or plaintive "That's not who I am," we're right. Our true nature is virtuous and good. Then why do we do terrible things? Over countless lifetimes, we have developed and reinforced many bad habits, including the poisons of greed, anger, ignorance, and arrogance.
Our ignorance of cause and effect results in our acting selfishly. Wrapped up in our desires, we may lash out at others in anger when things do not go our way. And so we yell at a young restaurant worker when our food is delayed and brazenly let our dog run free when signs tell us to keep it on a leash.
In an age where some measure their success by the amount of attention they get, people are increasingly acting out. If you want to find your children in a crowded airport, you could always scream and even destroy the counter if the airline staff does not drop everything and focus on finding them.
If you're the most outrageous person around, you'll be photographed sprawled on a chair in an office you've just illegally entered. And when you leave the building, you'll have the crowd around you cheering as you recount your exploits and wave the souvenir you bagged in that office. In a crowd of hundreds, you'll be the one who gets noticed. People will look at you in awe because you did what they only wish they had done. Indeed, as has been said, the loudest and most obvious person gets noticed.
Unfortunately, the attention could end up being from those we don't want to notice us. We could end up on a Wikipedia page that we cannot live down or on an airline’s no-fly list. We might even find ourselves in front of a jury that finds our actions reprehensible and declares us guilty of all the charges against us. All because we failed in the past to let go of our anger and rage. Failed to feel regret, failed to change.
So what can we do now? How do we avoid ending up on social media or the news for the wrong reasons?
Upon realizing that we have done something wrong, we tell ourselves that we don’t want to be stuck in the quicksand that is regret. We do not want this to be an end-point. We do not want to stay stuck, brooding and even obsessing over what we did. We’ll just be planting more seeds for future suffering. And so we need to move on.
We want to regret our actions and, at the same time, look at regret in a positive way, recognizing that our actions were civilly, morally, or even legally wrong. We can remind ourselves that not feeling regret would be a problem because we wouldn't have the motivation to reform. This will help us view our regret as a helpful warning of what we need to change in order to avoid doing something worse in the future. This can be a start-off point, a launchpad for positive actions. With this mindset, we can begin to move on by considering the underlying reasons we acted as we did and then determine how we can better respond to similar triggers in the future.
Instead of letting regret weigh us down, it can help us be the person we want to be.
Happy—not filled with regret and worry about having acted wrongly.
Relaxed—not filled with anger at perceived injustices toward us.
Optimistic—knowing that the past is just that and how our focus now is on creating a better future.
Empathetic—understanding that just as we do things we regret, so do others. Regret is a virtue that fosters forgiveness. As we acknowledge we acted wrongly, logic can lead us to accept that others similarly feel regret. And that just as we are deeply appreciative when forgiven for our harmful impulses and egregious actions, and offered the opportunity to change and make amends, others do as well.