We read in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, that "What's done cannot be undone", which is as true today as it was back in Shakespeare’s day, for that which we do, good or bad, has permanency, that no amount of wishing that it would be gone when we have done something that we deeply regret or that it would be different in its subsequent result, can conceivably change what has occurred, which signifies that the actions that we take cannot be undone once we have done them, and since this is always true we should recognize that if we desire to do something constructive about what has been done, it’s going to have to be something that makes good on what has been done, which may or may not even be possible, but it is up to us to explore and to try.
To a certain degree, those who regret their bad actions are at least cognizant that they have done something wrong, which is the first step in correcting one’s bad actions, but in and of itself, this cannot change what has already occurred. Still, in order to make amends, we first need to acknowledge our error and, from there, see what we can or can’t do to ameliorate such a mistake. There are those cases, though, in which nothing that we can do can make up for a particularly regrettable event, which signifies that we not only need to own up to what we have done but that we are going to have to find a way to obtain something positive by our subsequent actions, by doing something constructive that will be of benefit to others, as a way to make recompense for a bad error in judgment, which may or may not be accepted by our contemporaries, though that is of less importance than the recognition that we have an inherent obligation to do right for having done wrong.
Look, it has to be said, that mistakes are part and parcel of the human experience, and that some of those mistakes are going to be things that we deeply regret and wish did not happen, but what’s done cannot be undone, which means that we need to not only learn from our mistakes so as to make it our point to not repeat such, but quite importantly we need to make good on our mistakes to the best of our ability to thereby correct what needs to be corrected, not under the misimpression that this will undo what has been done, but rather as the ways and means to better ourself and to also be a person that is not a prisoner of the mistakes of their past, but live instead in the present, as well as projecting into the future as to what their overarching worthwhile goals and dreams represent, so that they can do the things necessary to get to the place that they aspire to get to.
Those then who learn from their mistakes to thereby accomplish something worthwhile are the same that make progress; whereas, those who do not, are those who are stuck within a construct in which what has been done, has essentially undone them.