Top Five Regrets of the Dying

Top Five Regrets of the Dying

I saw this article about a a powerful book by a wonderful woman named Bronnie Ware which focuses in on the actual voiced regrets of people she encountered when they were dying. Powerful stuff – go and pick up the book! Here’s a small excerpt: For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives.

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. Here are the most common five:

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.

It is very important to try and honour at least some of your dreams along the way. From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.

2. I wish I didn’t work 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.

By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do. And by creating more space in your life, you become happier and more open to new opportunities, ones more suited to your new lifestyle.

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.

We cannot control the reactions of others. However, although people may initially react when you change the way you are by speaking honestly, in the end it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level. Either that or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life. Either way, you win.

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.

It is common for anyone in a busy lifestyle to let friendships slip. But when you are faced with your approaching death, the physical details of life fall away. People do want to get their financial affairs in order if possible. But it is not money or status that holds the true importance for them. They want to get things in order more for the benefit of those they love. Usually though, they are too ill and weary to ever manage this task. It is all comes down to love and relationships in the end. That is all that remains in the final weeks, love and relationships.

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.

When you are on your deathbed, what others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again, long before you are dying.

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

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When God Created Mothers

“When God Created Mothers"

 

When the Good Lord was creating mothers, He was into His sixth day of "overtime" when the angel appeared and said. "You're doing a lot of fiddling around on this one." 

And God said, "Have you read the specs on this order?" She has to be completely washable, but not plastic. Have 180 moveable parts...all replaceable. Run on black coffee and leftovers. Have a lap that disappears when she stands up. A kiss that can cure anything from a broken leg to a disappointed love affair. And six pairs of hands." 

The angel shook her head slowly and said. "Six pairs of hands.... no way." 

It's not the hands that are causing me problems," God remarked, "it's the three pairs of eyes that mothers have to have." 

That's on the standard model?" asked the angel. God nodded. 

One pair that sees through closed doors when she asks, 'What are you kids doing in there?' when she already knows. Another here in the back of her head that sees what she shouldn't but what she has to know, and of course the ones here in front that can look at a child when he goofs up and say. 'I understand and I love you' without so much as uttering a word." 

God," said the angel touching his sleeve gently, "Get some rest tomorrow...." 

I can't," said God, "I'm so close to creating something so close to myself. Already I have one who heals herself when she is sick...can feed a family of six on one pound of hamburger...and can get a nine year old to stand under a shower." 

The angel circled the model of a mother very slowly. "It's too soft," she sighed. 

But tough!" said God excitedly. "You can imagine what this mother can do or endure." 

Can it think?" 

Not only can it think, but it can reason and compromise," said the Creator. 

Finally, the angel bent over and ran her finger across the cheek. 

There's a leak," she pronounced. "I told You that You were trying to put too much into this model." 

It's not a leak," said the Lord, "It's a tear." 

What's it for?" 

It's for joy, sadness, disappointment, pain, loneliness, and pride." 

You are a genius, " said the angel. 

Somberly, God said, "I didn't put it there.” 
― Erma Bombeck, When God Created Mothers

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Lost Are Those Who Are Forgotten

Lost are those who are forgotten

 

Life cannot be better, we say when everything around us goes the way we want it to be. It feels like we have been riding a big airplane-sized car on the straight and plain highway of life. There is no traffic, no stop sign, nothing to distract us. We and our life. We get whatever we want. Life feels picture-perfect. 

This is where we do the prime mistake of our lives. The slip where we are going to slide so hard that  we are going to burst. We do not even realize what we are doing. We climb all the way to the mountains and do not know our way down. This is where life likes to play with us. To play with our emotions and beloved ones. Just to make us stronger. Life just wants us to realize the authenticity and not to forget the sure-happenings of life. Life puts a bump on the super straight highway. A slow-down. Life takes away our beloved ones from us. 

Ones without whom our life is meaningless. Ones who ho are actually the wheels of our car which keeps our vehicle running. What should we do in that situation? Give up? I don’t think so. Life itself is so dumb. It just knows few tricks to get us but we are a lot smarter than that. Do not let life play on us but play with life. Tell life how strong we are and we have not forgotten anything. We know our way down and we know that life is not perfect. Tell life that we know we all are in this world to leave. We know that this straight simple way is going to be stony at some place and we will get through it. Sometimes we think that why life chose us to be the victim. Remember we are not the victims, we are blessed ones. 

Life did it to us because we are a lot stronger than other people and we will become inspiration of people. We will become a source of message for other million people and show them that we are living in the real world and we thank God for everything. We obviously miss the lost ones but now we are going to live our own lives because people need us. Because this world needs some good people to be here still to spread the intelligence. Our families need us to support them and we will make proud those who are taken away from us. We did not actually lose them. 

Lost are those who are forgotten. They will be there with us, in our memories forever. We will meet them in heaven someday and will spend the never-ending life with them. Everybody loves us. I used “We” all over this little message because it’s not just you. You are not alone. It’s you and me together. It’s we now and forever.

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How to Know If You Talk Too Much

You may have heard the saying, “When you’re in love, smoke gets in your eyes.” Well when you’re talking, smoke gets in your eyes and ears. Once you’re on a roll, it’s very easy to not notice that you’ve worn out your welcome. You may not even realize that the other person is politely trying to get a word in, or subtly signaling that they need to be elsewhere (possibly, anywhere else if you have been really boring).

There are three stages of speaking to other people. In the first stage, you’re on task, relevant and concise.  But then you unconsciously discover that the more you talk, the more you feel relief.  Ahh, so wonderful and tension-relieving for you… but not so much fun for the receiver. This is the second stage – when it feels so good to talk, you don’t even notice the other person is not listening.

The third stage occurs after you have lost track of what you were saying and begin to realize you might need to reel the other person back in.  If during the third stage of this monologue poorly disguised as a conversation you unconsciously sense that the other person is getting a bit fidgety, guess what happens then?

Unfortunately, rather than finding a way to reengage your innocent victim through having them talk and then listening to them, instead the usual impulse is to talk even more in an effort to regain their interest.

Why does this happen? First, the very simple reason that all human beings have a hunger to be listened to. But second, because the process of talking about ourselves releases dopamine, the pleasure hormone.  One of the reasons gabby people keep gabbing is because they become addicted to that pleasure.

Not long after my book, Just Listen, came out, I too succumbed to ignoring signs that I had started to annoy my friend and fellow coach, Marty Nemko,
 host of a radio show about work on KALW, NPR’s San Francisco affiliate. He and I have been coaching each other for some time.  He hit a nerve when he told me, “Mark, for an expert on listening, you need to talk less and listen more.”

After I recovered from the embarrassment, he pointed out a nifty strategy that I have been using. It’s helping me and it might help 
you. Nemko calls it the Traffic Light Rule. He says it works better when talking with most people, especially with Type A personalities, who tend to be less patient.

In the first 20 seconds of talking, your light is green: your listener is liking you, as long as your statement is relevant to the conversation and hopefully in service of the other person. But unless you are an extremely gifted raconteur, people who talk for more than roughly half minute at a time are boring and often perceived as too chatty. So the light turns yellow for the next 20 seconds— now the risk is increasing that the other person is beginning to lose interest or think you’re long-winded. At the 40-second mark, your light is red. Yes, there’s an occasional time you want to run that red light and keep talking, but the vast majority of the time, you’d better stop or you’re in danger.

Nemko says that following the Traffic Light Rule is just the first step in keeping you from talking too much. It’s also important to determine your underlying motivation for talking 
so much. Is it that it just feels good to go on and
 on and get more stuff off your chest? Do you talk to clarify your thinking? Or do you talk because you often have to listen to other people, and when you’ve found someone who will let you have the microphone you just can’t help yourself?

Whatever the cause, filibustering is usually a conversational turn-off, and may result in both of you deteriorating into alternating monologues. And that certainly will do little to move the conversation or your relationship forward.

One reason some people are long-winded is because they’re trying to impress their conversational counterpart with how smart they are, often because they don’t actually feel that way underneath. If this is the case for you, realize that continuing to talk will only cause the other person to be less impressed.

Of course, some people who talk too much simply “may not have a sense of the passage of time,” Nemko says. If this is the case, the cure is not to look inside yourself for psychological insight. It’s just to develop a better internal sense of how long 20 and 40 seconds are. Start to use a watch to catch yourself, for example, when on the phone. You’ll get in the habit of stopping an utterance when your light is still green, or at least yellow.

Finally, remember that even 20 seconds of talking can be a turn off if you don’t include the other person in the conversation. To avoid that, ask questions, try to build on what they say, and look for ways to include them in the conversation so it is a genuine dialogue instead of a diatribe.

Well I think my 40 seconds is up, so I’ll stop here.

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Steps To Simplify Your Life

20 Steps to Simplify Your Life

Modern life can be very busy and this might be distracting you from the life you actually want. Change is difficult and many people don’t know where to start. It’s also hard to know which activities are stealing away your focus. I’ve found change is more achievable by taking little steps, and setting small, manageable goals. This exercise asks you to take 20 days to make 20 changes that will allow you to focus on what really matters.

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Start 1. Start asking questions Ask yourself questions to help you decide what is truly important in your life. Consider: Where is my time best spent? Do I need this? What’s more important? Questions along these lines can lead you to find clarity and help you move towards powerful and positive changes in your life.

Food 2. Make a recipe list Write a list of all the dishes you know and enjoy cooking, and then make an list of the ingredients required to make these meals. This is a good opportunity to reevaluate your eating habits and possibly expand your food repertoire. 3. Set up a meal plan Using your recipe list, plan out what meals you would like to cook for a week. You can make a shopping list based on this plan. Planning like this can save you time and the hassle of deciding what to cook. You can also cook larger quantities of one dish and eat it a few times during the week. Knowing what you plan to eat can also help you cut down on the number of trips you make to the grocery store. 4. Enjoy eating at home Planning your meals ahead of time allows you to enjoy eating at home. With the stress of deciding what to make removed, you can focus on the food preparation itself. In addition, home dining saves you money and invigorates the novelty of dining in a restaurant. Furthermore, if you eat out often, choosing a restaurant takes time, and agreeing on one with your fellow diners can take the fun out of dining out.

Money 5. Set up automated savings Set up a savings account that automatically assigns small portions of your income from your regular bank account. The amount doesn’t matter. This system automates the practice of monthly saving and helps you develop saving habits.   6. Pay all your bills on the same day If possible, schedule all your monthly bills to be paid on the same day. This makes handling monthly bills easier. Adding up the total amount due allows you to calculate how much disposable income you will have over. 7. Make weekly accounts This practice allows you to automate your weekly spending. Look at your monthly expenses and see how much your typical fixed and unexpected expenses are. Based on this figure calculate how much you should be spending per week. You can use a smartphone app (try Mint) or withdraw cash weekly to keep a handle on this.

Entertainment and technology 8. Unclutter your devices If you have a smartphone or tablet, you often download apps you don't use. Your email inbox and your desktop computer also become cluttered with untouched items. This makes it difficult to use these devices for what you actually bought them for, so spend some time clearing these. Delete unused files and archive old emails.  Look through your apps and uninstall those you don’t use frequently. You can also place less frequently used apps on a separate page so that they won’t distract you from what you want to do when using your device. 9. Unfollow and unfriend A lot of your time, mental energy and sanity can be wasted on social media. Cull your social network and leave only those that add value to your day and really care about you. If work and family obligations make this difficult, at least simplify the settings so that it’s less cluttered when you first look at it. For example, you can unfollow these acquaintances, without unfriending them.  10. Cut down on TV There are a lot of compelling TV shows on the air and sometimes they can suck away your time unnecessarily. Don’t schedule your time around the TV. Make a list of your favorite TV shows and pick your favorite ten. If some of them clash with activities, record them via TIVO or watch them online. TV can wait and should be watched when you feel like it.

Mental 11. Practice mindfulness The reason you are simplifying your life is to find more peace and joy in the everyday moments. Quieting the mind from the chatter that overwhelms it is a practical solution to feeling at peace and less stressed by your thoughts. If you are not familiar with mindfulness, consider joining a group or watching a video on the practice. 12. Tackle things you've been putting off Usually, there are errands or chores you have been avoiding, and although they only take a few minutes to do, they become a mental burden. This procrastination can stress you out unknowingly. Tackling these "action items" now, one by one, can prevent them from becoming a larger problem later on.

Goals 13. Keep a list of weekly activities that need doing This is different from a to-do list. These are minor activities that need to be done, but having to remember them can distract you from important tasks. Keeping them on a list, written down on a post-it, or set as an alarm reminder will allow you not to worry about them, and also remind you to do them. 14. Simplify your goals If you have dozens of goals, you’ll find you aren’t getting anywhere with any of them. You need to focus on a select few if you want to get anywhere. Take your goal list and reevaluate which ones are beneficial to you and truly worth your time. Some people abandon the term goal and use the word intention. For example, you can intend to work on your carpentry every day and have the goal of building a shed. This makes carpentry your focus, and the goal of completing a project secondary. 15. Start single-tasking Multi-tasking has been very trendy, but it doesn’t help calm the mind or get something done well. The mentality should be switched to getting several tasks done in a day with a single-pointed mind. When you focus on one thing at a time, without the distractions of a second task, you can give it 100% of your attention. 16. Delegate or ask for help This is not passing off responsibilities to others. This point is about knowing how much you can handle. You can hurt yourself or the project you’re involved with if you overcommit or don’t know how to do something. By learning to ask for help from those who are better at the thing you need help with than yourself, you are helping everyone. Asking for help also helps you connect with others.

Other 17. Give away things you don’t use This task is straightforward. Having less needless possessions can free up physical space and mental worries. This one can take more than a day so be wise about how you approach this task. Choose a room or a storage area to tackle. Consider how often you use an object and how much you plan on using it in the future. You can also take into account whether it contributes positively, negatively or neutrally to your life. 18. Reduce time commitments This relates to step 16, and being aware of your limits. Many people don’t like saying no to family, friends or work and overextend themselves. This can inhibit your own success and harm your overall well-being. Be selective with your time and carefully consider what activities are worth your energy. 19. Systematize important information There are so many important pieces of information required to keep your affairs in order, such as passwords, paperwork and account details. This can be difficult to track. Set up a reliable system to deal with incoming info. You can opt for either a physical or digital system. For a digital one scan important documents and organize them into a folder with subfolders on your computer. Store it somewhere easy to find. If you prefer a physical paper system invest in an expanding file, which you can buy at an office supply store, and add labels to it. This process will simplify this annoying aspect of modern life.

End 20. Reevaluate everything After 20 days of action, you need to sit and reevaluate how the simplifying process went. How did the changes go? Did some things not work well? Decide if further changes need to be made. Take note of the specific effects each strategy has had on your life. Only you know the answers. Many times the adjustments are just as productive as the initial action.

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