There’s no point in
regretting not doing anything in Life. It is never too late if you can go live
the Life that you really want to!
Here’s an unsolicited tip to
make your weekend qualitative: ask yourself what are your regrets in Life and get
down to working on changing the way you live! You can call it your Bucket List
or treat it as a Wake-Up Call – whatever, but simply don’t spend your time
regretting the Life you have led so far. Rejoice with what is left of it!
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| Bronnie Ware: Nurse, Author, Songwriter |
There’s some unputdownable
evidence supporting this thinking that comes from a former nurse, Bronnie Ware,
from Australia, who has spent several years in palliative care, looking after
the dying, in the last 12 weeks of their lives. She recorded the thoughts of
her dying patients in her blog www.inspirationandchai.com
and later put out a book, compiling her observations, called ‘The Top Five Regrets of the Dying’. Ware
found that most people, while dying, felt one or more of these regrets strongly
and grieved over them until they made “peace with themselves”.
Regret # 1: “I wish I’d had the courage to
live a Life true to myself, not the Life others expected of me.”
Regret # 2: “I wish
I hadn’t worked so hard.”
Regret # 3: “I wish
I’d had the courage to express my feelings.”
Regret # 4: “I wish
I had stayed in touch with my friends.”
Regret # 5: “I wish
I had let myself be happier.”
It’s possible that you may
connect with some of these sentiments yourself. But chances are
business-as-usual, the bane of Life, will take over and force you to continue
living a sub-optimal Life. People normally grow a lot when they are faced with
their own death. You will have noticed this in your own family too. So, one
sure way to get started, to live the Life you want, and to stay committed on
the path, is to imagine that you have only this weekend or say this month or
whatever limited time to live. What changes will you then make to your Life?
What would you stop doing immediately? And what would you start doing? When
your list is ready, go over it one more time. Be driven by a sense of urgency
to live fully – so don’t look at things practically or realistically and don’t
operate being limited by the constraints that surround you. Simply go after
Life – as if death awaits you in the next moment, at the end of the day! If
that really is the case, what are the things you will do? Just go do them. Day
after day after day. You will then find that you will be a lot more happier
with a lot less – less work to do, less money to make and less stress to handle!
I remember reading somewhere
that “One day, as you are dying, your entire Life will play in
front of your eyes. Make sure the flashback’s worth watching.” Bronnie Ware’s observations and her Top Five Regrets
summary are something that I can deeply relate to. Up until when I was 37, which
was some time ago, I lived Life in an unintelligent, imprudent way. I would
have had those same regrets back then. But through some difficult, but
conscious choices, that Life forced me to make, I have learnt that being happy
with the Life you have is the biggest opportunity in front of each of us. We all have to go one day. But if you have been happy living,
chances are, you will be happier dying – for there will be fewer, or even no,
regrets with the Life you have lived!
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