What You Regret When You're Dying
It was impossible for me to read this without thinking about my own life, and my own death, and my own (few, I hope) regrets when that time comes.
On a blog called (sorry) Inspiration and Chai, the author shares her experiences as a palliative-care worker. The people she helped had all gone home -- most after a long and debilitating fight -- to die in peace:
People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality. I learnt never to underestimate someone's capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them.
When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again.
The common regrets are exactly what you think they'd be, but still. Worth thinking about:
1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I didn't work so hard.
3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
That about covers it. I'd only add that I wish I hadn't voted for Walter Mondale in 1984.
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Jul '10
Re: What You Regret When You're Dying
There is a saying we repeat in our family;
No One has ever said on their deathbed, I wish I'd spent more time at the Office.
A friend once challanged me to take a yellow pad and a red pen and write the top 100 things in life that I want. (It's not as easy as it sounds.)
He then told me to after I'd written the 100 things that I wanted to review them several times and then start to prioritize them.
What I learned was the first 25 were easy, they also weren't mine.
The one I listed as number 1 was down around 46.
I changed careers about three months later, beginning by quiting a job I'd held 18 years at a Major Aerospace Company.
I do not regret that choice, and my wife and I have been far happier since.
Feb '11
Re: What You Regret When You're Dying
I also wish I hadn’t done the things I got away with.
Feb '11
Re: What You Regret When You're Dying
Perhaps a very few do say this. However, no one ever says, “I wish I’d spent more time at the Post Office.” That’s a certainty.
Apr '11
Re: What You Regret When You're Dying
I've wondered if I would indeed regret living the life others expected of me, not living the life true to myself. There's something to be said for having lived a life that met all the requirements insofar as possible.
Jul '10
Re: What You Regret When You're Dying
I regret having worn bell-bottom hip-hugger pants.
May '10
Re: What You Regret When You're Dying
I regret having imagined Kenneth in bell-bottom hip-hugger pants.
Dec '10
Re: What You Regret When You're Dying
Dude, that's what I was thinking!
Mar '11
Re: What You Regret When You're Dying
I wish I hadn't just read that you'd voted for Mondale....
Oct '10
Re: What You Regret When You're Dying
Not so sure about regrets, but I hope when I'm on my deathbed I'll summon the title of Auberon Waugh's autobiography as my last words: “Will this Do?”.
May '10
Re: What You Regret When You're Dying
Not to be light on the subject, but I have found that Facebook helps a lot with not having to worry about #4...
Mar '11
Re: What You Regret When You're Dying
I wish I had made better decisions when I was young.
Dec '10
Re: What You Regret When You're Dying
I wish I were going to make better decisions in my old age.
Mar '11
Re: What You Regret When You're Dying
Touché
Stuart Creque
I wish I were going to make better decisions in my old age. · Jun 11 at 3:43pm
May '11
Re: What You Regret When You're Dying
Along with that I wish I would have been a nicer person. I guess it is probably the same thing.
Oct '10
Re: What You Regret When You're Dying
There is an old song by Peggy Lee, Is That All There Is ?Something thoughtfull there...
Dec '10
Re: What You Regret When You're Dying
A related question: why is it that nearly every inmate on Death Row fears death?
Samuel Johnson said, "The prospect of being hanged in a fortnight concentrates the mind wonderfully." But he did not speak of dread.
We have numerous examples through the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries of condemned men and women -- some justly accused and convicted, some innocent victims of twisted regimes -- meeting the executioner with dignity and grace.
I think of two examples from 20th century pop culture: Angels with Dirty Faces and A Place in the Sun. In the former, priest Pat O'Brien visits his boyhood friend Jimmy Cagney on Death Row and begs him to "die yellow," to show cowardice in the electric chair so that the priest's orphan charges stop looking up to a murderer as a hero. In the latter, Montgomery Clift, convicted of murder though he did not strike the fatal blow, asks the clergyman just before his walk to the gas chamber whether he really deserves to be executed; the Reverend replies, "In that moment, when you could have saved the girl from drowning, were you thinking of her, or of the other girl [Elizabeth Taylor]?" And Clift understands.
Dec '10
Re: What You Regret When You're Dying
Rob, my eldest daughter wrote a story as a paper for a freshman college course on Religion and Psychology: how would humankind react if it became known with certainty that a cosmic cataclysm would destroy the Solar System in ten years' time?
She dealt squarely with the concept of what our species would regret, collectively and on the part of its constituent members, when it was dying. She told it in the form of video diary entries that she makes while in a space capsule racing toward the edge of the Universe at light speed, with the goal of seeing if God dwells in the void beyond and if she can confront Him with her questions about existence and annihilation.
I adapted it into a feature screenplay and am workshopping it.
Jul '10
Re: What You Regret When You're Dying
What if You don't get a "deathbed?"
Perhaps You should live as if You are going to get struck dead this afternoon.
Dec '10
Re: What You Regret When You're Dying
Did anyone else find that list controversial? The only one I have no qualms with is #4.
My #1 is, already, that it took me 40-mumble-mumble years to enter the faith -- fully, with intention. All else flows from my relationship, or lack thereof, with Christ. The Christian ethic teaches that your life is not about you, which is my problem with #1 above. In fact, the Judeo-Christian system of ethics teaches us to fight our "true" selves. To struggle with our concupiscence and to accept the grace of God in order to be perfect like our Father is perfect. It took me way too long to take up that struggle and to express my gratitude for the grace.
I would replace #2 above with, I regret not having lived life more abundantly. I spent too much time on Ricochet, Lord, and not enough bringing joy to my family and others around me when I had the chance. One regret I won't ever have in this regard is watching too much TV or playing too many video games, but I know others for whom this will make the list.
Dec '10
Re: What You Regret When You're Dying
Jimmy Carter: What if You don't get a "deathbed?"
Perhaps You should live as if You are going to get struck dead this afternoon. · Jun 11 at 4:07pm
But what if I survive the day and wake up tomorrow broke, with a massive hangover, and exposed to who-knows-what diseases?