regrets of the dying

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
none of these surprised me. its never too late dissensus!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-five-regrets-of-the-dying

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

"This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it."

2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.

"This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. Women also spoke of this regret, but as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence."

3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.

"Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result."

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

"Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying."

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

"This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called 'comfort' of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again."
 
D

droid

Guest
6. I wish I had succumbed more to mawkish sentimentality.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
great topic.

Number 4 I am a bit sceptical about - in 90 per cent of cases, if you really, really wanted to stay in touch, you would've. There's usually unacknowledged reasons. It's true that life takes away that opportunity in about 10 % of cases.

Number 2 - definitely. some jobs are genuinely worth doing long hours at, but mostly why spend the one life you will ever have, rushing every morning to do work that probably benefits someone richer than you? I mean, jesus.

Number 5 is super-true as well, and fits in best with number 2 to my mind. In fact, all of these things pretty much centre around not succumbing to bullshit and not having one's life ruled by others.
 
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zhao

there are no accidents
ha i'm living my life in exactly a way that i am in ZERO danger of any of those regrets :D:D:D except for possibly 4.

but of course there are down sides to it as well
 

hucks

Your Message Here
It's straight up self help cliches from 1-5. What a load of bollocks. "Let myself be happier". Who talks like that? Dying people are idiots.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
on the contrary, most people with some kind of economic means would have few problems indeed if they can say with truth that none of those apply to them in any way. The way the author's written it up might leave something to be desired, but I'd rather read something cliched with a ring of truth than well-written emptiness. Spot on about familiarity giving false succour. Is succour the right word? Dunno, like the sound of it anyways. Most people, myself definitely included, have spent long hours doing stuff that, looking back, was a complete waste of life. And I'm not talking about hours lost to sambuca, either.
 
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Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I bet for loads of people it's "I wish I'd had a lot more casual sex and taken a lot more drugs".
 

slowtrain

Well-known member
I am going to take drugs and have casual sex next weekend.

I will tell my friends who are leaving for Thailand today that I love them very much and appreciate their existence to the nth degree.

I will not succumb to boring dead people regrets.

I will regret not drinking the blood of 36 virgins when I am on my death bed.
 

hucks

Your Message Here
@baboon exactly though. Where is "I wish I hadn't wasted so much time" on that list? And where is, "I wish I'd been kinder/ less of a dick to that person"? Only saints dying on that list. It's all self affirming - I wish I'd been the me I wanted to be but other people wouldn't allow. I was right all along.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
@baboon exactly though. Where is "I wish I hadn't wasted so much time" on that list? And where is, "I wish I'd been kinder/ less of a dick to that person"? Only saints dying on that list. It's all self affirming - I wish I'd been the me I wanted to be but other people wouldn't allow. I was right all along.

I'd say it correlates with number 5, not doing things out of habit, and with number 2, which is pretty similar ultimately (I presume they're largely not talking about people spending too much time at more meaningful jobs/vocations).

I see where you're coming from now, fair enough, but I think how you treat other people is intimately linked to how you treat yourself. Most people are dicks to others, in my view, largely because they are feeling frustrated/resentful/angry at themselves or their inability to deal with other things in their head/not alive in some way. From personal experience alone, I know I've been a dick mostly when I've been unhappy/felt trapped/unfulfilled etc. My girlfriend showed me a lovely quote this week that she'd read somewhere:

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs, ask what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive". Obv that's aphoristic to an extent and you could punch holes in it, but I think broadly speaking, it's true. There's a strain of self-denial in this culture that confuses selfishness - that is ultimately derived from paying too much attention to status ie too much to what other people think - with self-actualisation (choose another less wanky word if you like, but hopefully the meaning is fairly clear). What's wrong with self-affirmation anyways? As long as you can combine that with empathy for other people, it's great.

"It's all self affirming - I wish I'd been the me I wanted to be but other people wouldn't allow." I dont' think this is quite right - it's not that other people wouldn't allow it, it's that the person speaking wouldn't allow it for themselves, and spent their whole life resentful because of it, which hardly bodes well for the way they treated other people.
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Mine will be "I wish I hadn't spent so much time fucking about on the internet".

To an extent, but the internet is fucking great too, easily one of the best (the best?) things of the past 50 years. So glad I was around to see it, even if I wish electronic games had never been invented sometimes... And glad I didn't have access to it as a teenager, to be honest, only when I was slightly more self-disciplined... slightly....
 

hucks

Your Message Here
"It's all self affirming - I wish I'd been the me I wanted to be but other people wouldn't allow." I dont' think this is quite right - it's not that other people wouldn't allow it, it's that the person speaking wouldn't allow it for themselves, and spent their whole life resentful because of it, which hardly bodes well for the way they treated other people.

I meant number one in particular, which is exactly that. I see what you're saying about people being dicks cos they're frustrated (and i agree, you're totally right) but the regret in that case should be that you took your frustrations out on people who didn't deserve it. Not that you didn't let yourself be happy.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I meant number one in particular, which is exactly that. I see what you're saying about people being dicks cos they're frustrated (and i agree, you're totally right) but the regret in that case should be that you took your frustrations out on people who didn't deserve it. Not that you didn't let yourself be happy.

But people who are not happy almost inevitably end up making others around them unhappy, whether that be directly, or indirectly through self-sabotage. So makes more sense, to me at least, to regret the cause (unhappiness with what one is doing with one's life etc) rather than the symptom (anger/frustration). If you eradicate the cause as much as you can, the symptom gets properly managed; in keeping regretting the symptom, nothing changes ultimately.

Granted it's a lot more complex than that. I do think that when people are being dicks though, and obv I'm' speaking for myself here, it's better to ask yourself why you're unhappy/angry/frustrated in the first place, than to go through the ultimately quite dull saying sorry/self-flagellating thing, which can in itself become an unhealthy pattern.

I also think many people treat themselves worse than they ever treat anyone else (often because other people just wouldn't stand for it).
 
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