Live now, avoid regrets later
Don't be a cog in the machinery of your life
According to palliative care nurse Bronnie Ware, the top 5 regrets of folks who are dying are:
• I wish I'd lived a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me
• I wish I hadn't worked so hard
• I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings
• I wish I'd stayed in touch with my friends
• I wish I'd allowed myself to be happier
When I guide a new client through my Discovery conversation, one of the questions I often ask is, "If you had 24 hours left to live, what would you most regret not having done or not having been in your life?" And inevitably, I get answers similar to the list above.
Chief among them is spending more time with family and friends. So, I ask you... what's stopping you from spending more time with family and friends today?
This week?
This weekend?
Or doing anything else you might later regret not having done?
Or said?
Or been?
What’s interesting about this list is that these are all "errors of omission." In other words, these aren't things people did and later regretted. They're each something someone wishes they HAD done. But didn't.
One solution to avoiding these deathbed regrets?,Don't be a cog.
Paul Graham said, "The 5 regrets paint a portrait of post-industrial man, who shrinks himself into a shape that fits his circumstances, then turns dutifully till he stops." Worse still, we're often a cog in a machine someone else built. This machine (our lives) was likely built on the expectations of our parents, our children, our friends, our community, or others. Or maybe you feel trapped as a cog in a machine created by your own expectations.
Now, I'm not here to vilify expectations. They can often serve as powerful motivators.
What I do question, and would encourage you to question, is whether you're living according to expectations of your own choosing? Are you truly the author of your own life? Time is our most precious resource. Make sure you're using your time deliberately to live a life of premeditated purpose.
In a not-so-roundabout way, this is at the heart of the work we do with our clients.
Money is important and we each need it to live our lives. But is your money aligned with the life you really want to live, both today and in the future? Have you considered not just your financial goals, but your personal values and the priorities among what it is you want to do with the time you have?
Listen, we all - each of us - get one shot at this thing called life. None of us is getting out of here alive.
While you need to attend to your personal and professional responsibilities, think about how you can be more intentional about some of the items on the list above. Or about anything else that is important to you. At the end of the day, financial and retirement planning is about regret minimization. Isn't it?
And if something is important enough, you can always find the time to get it done. Aligning your financial resources with living your best life is what we do.
Thanks for reading.