Before the Famous Last Words....

Over the weekend I had the chance to visit one on one with the man who fathered me. In his middle 90s. Still going but at a point in his life where the end is not a theory any more.

He said some profound things to me. I don't know why. But we were alone. I was an ear.

He said,

"There are many things I wish I had done. I'm glad I did what I did but if I hadn't and made other choices they would have probably worked out as well. I wish I had done some thing I didn't do. Now as age has crept up, I cannot do them any more and I know that. Do what you want to do and do it while you can."

It was profound because what he said resonated. I had read a study of what people in hospice, people in nursing homes, people at the end of their days say they wish they had done better or different. They do not regret WHAT they did... God takes that on HIMSELF. They regret not having done what they might have. They regret having lived without doing what they thought about doing. They regret being too cautious. They regret taking the safe route in life. Their message to us is, don't back off. Do it now.

There is a person who lives life working with the dying. They report these regrets in order as:

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.

Life is a choice. It is YOUR life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly. Choose happiness.

This emotion is exactly what was said to me. We regret what we didn't do, not what we did.

I am challenged by this.

WHAT if we try and fail...are there not regrets?

According to this maybe we fear failure too much. Penelope Trunk wrote this:

So I ask myself, what is the cost if the risk does not work out? But when I consider process as well as outcome, then the scales often seem to tip in favor of the risk. Here's are five things I keep in mind when assessing risk:

1. Long-term regrets are usually about not taking more risks.
If you ask people at the end of their lives what their biggest regret is, it’s common for the regret to center around not taking more risks. The same is true of younger people. Ran Kivets is a psychologist at Columbia University who studies winter break. He says that in the short-term college kids regret not having studied enough, but in the long-term, college kids regret not having had more fun. So it’s no surprise that of the most popular posts on my blog is about regrets over getting straight A’s. (Hat tip: Joshua Althouse Cohen)

2. Being wrong costs very little.
In general, people don’t care if you’re wrong; it’s your life and you get to make mistakes. Also, in general, people don’t care if you’re right because they are too interested in themselves. And okay, it’s true that if you invest a lot of money being wrong costs a lot, butut there are very few risks we consider that require a huge outlay of money and a 100% risk on that money. Instead, risk-taking generally requires a relatively small percentage of the money you can earn. Fortunately, the way we get the most happiness from spending money is by spending on experiences. And what better experience than taking a risk and finding out what it will be like.

3. People bounce back faster than they expect.
Most of us are much more resilient than we realize. Daniel Gilbert, professor of psychology at Harvard, explains that we each have a set-point for how happy we are going to be, and we mostly just stick there. Winning a lot of money doesn’t make us much happier, and losing the ability to walk doesn’t make us much sadder. So it’s fair to conclude that most of us overestimate the impact risk-taking will have on our lives.

4. Don’t make the risk bigger than it needs to be.
For example a lot of people think they need to quit their job to try starting a new company (you don’t) or someone who thinks they need to completely dump one career to try a new career (you don’t.) The best risk takers are in fields like entrepreneurship, hedge fund management, and excavation. The thing these people all have in common – those who are successful in their field – is that they are constantly working to mitigate risk before they take the risk. Sometimes just looking at how someone else has approached your challenge can show you a less risky approach to taking the risk.

5. Most risks turn out fine.
In our minds, that is. Gilbert shows that we are able to reframe a poor decision in order to think it was a good decision. Having kids is his favorite example to use. Having kids makes us less happy, but we invest so much time and money into raising kids, that we’re able to convince ourselves it made us happy, and we don’t have regrets. And successful people who make big career mistakes are able to reframe the mistakes so they don’t matter. Also, inherently positive thinkers don’t usually have regrets over the long-term. (Wondering if you are one of these people? Take the test (middle of the page)

President Theodore Roosevelt said:

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

"Citizenship in a Republic,"
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

I would regret not being the one he spoke of who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

Living life in the middle ground of lukewarm safety without ever making a stand. Let that not be my regret as I draw my last breath.