LIVE AND LET DIE -- WITHOUT REGRETS

LIVE AND DIE SATISFIED – (NO BULLSHIT)

[Live Like You Were Dying – Tim McGraw – 4:58]

Even as medical science and quality of life continues to increase our life spans, it seems as though many of us are still not really living the life we’re given. Some are still unnecessarily walking doomed, upright and dying the death of the damned.

[No Pedestrians – Martin Taylor]

Too often on this journey between apparent birth and death, we get ourselves caught in the “busy” trap, running, running, running—but never getting much of anywhere.

But would you live differently if you knew you were going to die tonight? If so, how differently? And why?

[La Cathedral – John Williams (A)]

Cut the maudlin sentiment – whatever we experience ourselves to be // is going to die—sooner or later, and it might just be tonight. And while death is something we humans pretty universally fear, thinking about our own demise can actually spur us to live more fully. Hopefully, though, not out of fear or resistance.

In surveys of people in palliative care who know they are going to die, the regrets are almost never “I wish I had worked more,” or “I wish I had made more money,” or even “I wish I'd gotten more power.” More often they are about success and happiness in their simplest (and probably truest) forms.

I chose the following five commonest I-wish-I-had's from a book called, aptly, The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying, by Bronnie Ware, a palliative care nurse here in Australia who routinely asked her patients about their biggest regrets and recorded them on her blog.

1. Regret = “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself.” and “I wish I hadn't wasted so much time trying to be what I thought others expected of me.”

So often we make decisions in our life based on what others say they want or believe. Maybe you got a particular university degree because it’s what your father wanted. Or maybe, like me, you refused a certain career path precisely because it was what your father wanted (flipside of same coin). Maybe you took a certain job because it paid more. Maybe you didn’t pursue a childhood dream because someone told you it was foolish and you were being selfish, and to grow up.

But what would happen if you lived a responsible life that respected others and stayed true to yourself? If time and money were no object, everyone was supported, and you didn't have to work, what would you do? Where would you be? How would you live? How would you dress? Who would you spend your quality time with? What would you do and how would you be if you weren’t afraid of what others would think?

Yes, there are certainly considerations and constraints on all of us, but the closer we can come to finding a symbiotic outer life that gives the fullest possible expression to living a dinkum inner life, the happier we will be.

2. Regret = “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.”

Sister Ware reported that she heard this from almost every single one of her male patients. We blokes often think we have to work 40, 60, 80 hours a week because it’s expected of us as men, husbands, fathers, employees and citizens, because we want to be responsible and vocationally fulfilled, but is that really it? Is that enough, or are we missing something else that's even more important?

If you were truly honest with yourself, which would be more important: working hard to earn enough money (is there ever enough?), or having a different lifestyle? This juggling act is made all the more difficult because none of us was ever told that we already are what we're looking and working so long and hard for. We were told (well, I was) that life isn't easy, and we'd have to work long and hard for what we want. It's not our forbears' fault, they didn't know any better, and had to wait until they hit their deathbed to find out the truth – too late to pass the wisdom on. 

 

Now we know better. You already are and have what you seek. Everything else is frills and you can't take them with you. With a little more awareness and a few conscious choices, it may be just a matter of tweaking your present career and lifestyle to access fuller satisfaction. Or it may mean a complete change of scene. But in either extreme, the only radical change you'll need to make will be your own way of seeing things. That will be your biggest challenge, unless you're lucky enough right now to be so divinely pissed off with the way your life has turned out that you'll try anything to break free. That's where I was, but then I've always been lucky – even though I certainly didn't think so at the time.

3. Regret of the dying = “I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.”

Opposition is easy – just look at some of the wingnuts who espouse it as the only way to be in the world. It takes integrity and courage to make a Stand for something. How often do you bite your tongue to keep the peace? We’re told, “Don’t get so het-up about it,” or “Don't take it so seriously”, or “Don’t let your emotions rule you,” but our emotions are the closest thing to our own personal truth. Deny or suppress how you feel about something at peril of your health. The trick to using your feelings effectively is to have them and share them, but not dump them on someone who doesn't deserve your shit. No-one likes to be dumped on. It's no way to get a good outcome.

Realise, too, that we cannot control how other people react to us, but we can control how we react, and how we respond. That's just the way it is. No-one is going to go to therapy just to make you happy. Nor should they. Does that mean you should break down crying or throw a tantrum over family dinnertime or in your next board meeting? Probably not. But if you can take the energy of your emotions and channel that into positive change, a productive conversation with someone, or even a lifestyle shift, your emotions—even separating ones—can drive and focus a vast unifying influence on your world.

[Saving Private Ryan – Hymn to the Fallen – Erich Kunzel & CPO. – 4:16]

4. Common regret of the dying = “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.”

The illusion of Separation was invented so that we, as human beings, could pretend there is a “Me” and an “Other”, and then we can play a game called Relationships. Within this game (and it is only a game, remember) it’s easy to let personal relationships slide (especially if we’re head-down and bum-up occupied too much in other pursuits). Personal connections are what give this human life Meaning. I promise you, reports and promotions, pay raises, television programmes, video games, Facebook, texting, an interrupting call on your mobile and all the other time-sucks of modern day life won't even come a close second in your last moments. What will occupy you fully as you're preparing to leave will sound something like “Do they know how much I love them? Bugger what I was, do they know who I was?”

Turn that around now. Who could you reach out to today? Who could you call, or write, or text (if you must), or even just smile at, and let them know you’re thinking of them? How would it make you feel? And how would it make them feel? It’s pretty much a win-win, no-lose situation.

[Live For Love – Anthony Callea (A) – 3:48]

5. Regret = “I wish that I had given myself permission be happier.”

There’s so much wisdom tied up in that little statement. Happiness, it turns out, doesn’t have that much to do with the car you drive, or the job you have, or where you live, or how much money you've saved, or even the person you spend your life with. (That's not going to go down too well with the sentimentalists, is it? But it's true.) Happiness is actually a personal, moment-by-moment choice. A friend of mine asked recently widowed Sailor Bob Adamson how he was coping with his grief. “I'm fine”, he said, “unless I think about it and start feeling sorry for myself.” Does he miss her? Of course he does. But will that stop him being happy? No way.

Happiness is the difference between seeing an unexpected event as a setback or an adventure off the beaten track; the difference between being frustrated by a delay or relishing the chance to step back for a wider view and re-frame the situation; it's the difference between getting everything in a tangle because someone or something won't measure up to your addictive demands to the way it should be or welcoming the chance to drop your paralysis; it's the difference between resenting someone for who they aren’t and embracing them for who they are.

We don’t have to repeat the mistakes of those who have gone before us. In fact, the general idea is that you don't. Evolution is the natural process of adapting, and NOT repeating our selves. Our happiness, our success, nearly every detail of our lives comes down to choices, and we can choose to live the way we truly want to live, or spend our final days regretting the choices we didn’t make, and the opportunities we didn't take. And “I didn't realise!” is not going to work as a defence. Because real-ising is what you promised your maker you would do when you got a “Yes” to coming on this journey. Saying “yes” is an essential part of the deal. And when it comes to life-flashing-before-eyes time, I guarantee you won't regret a single thing you ever said “yes” to.

I hope that these sombre truths help inspire you to make the choices you won’t regret. I have always tried to take the loss of my father and my mother as important reminders to not leave happiness for a later date, but make the choices that lead to true success and happiness right here, right now.

How might these Regrets of the Dying help inspire your life choices about the way you'll live today? I hope you heed them, as messages from people who've already been where you're going, and start living today a life you won't be sorry for tomorrow.

[Live and Let Die – Wings – 3:13]