Two Important Life Lessons From The Dying, And What We Should Learn From Them

… The answer is common knowledge, but we seldom act on it.

Reading time ~5 minutes

We celebrate our birthdays with friends and family. However, what we don’t realize is that ironically, with every passing birthday, we’re only inching closer to our death.

When that time comes, we’re all hopeful that we won’t have any regrets. Unfortunately, most people put off the most important things for later.

Today, let’s look at two of the biggest regrets of the dying and what we can learn from it.

#1 Regret – Not Resolving Conflicts

There is a guest house in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh called “Kashi Labh Mukti Bhavan”. This is not a regular guest house, but a guest house with a purpose. It allows only the dying to check-in, and that too, the permitted stay is only for about two weeks. If a person does not die in this time, then he or she needs to vacate the place to make room for someone else. Till now (from the time it started sometime in late 1950s), this place has seen more than 14,000 deaths.

And the caretaker/ administrator at this guest house has seen thousands of people pass on in his decades of service.

When he was asked what he finds as the number one regret of the dying, he said, “The dying regret not having resolved all their conflicts while they could”.

Now, people get into conflicts all the time. Conflicts occur when others do not approve of our perspective, or not accept our point of view in a given situation. Just think about all the conflicts that you have in your life right now:

• Perhaps you have conflict at work (with your boss, or with subordinates), or you have conflict on the road (a.k.a. ‘road rage’). Or the conflict could be with your neighbours, or recently with the staff of an airline company, or with your credit card company! I would call these the trivial many.

• Or perhaps you have serious conflicts with your parents? Or your significant other? Or with your siblings or probably even with your kids? Or you’ve had a falling out with a close friend? It happens. Let’s call these the vital few.

Now which set of conflicts do you think really matter at the end? The vital few or the trivial many? I think you get my point.

Who would prefer to leave this world with unresolved issues with the vital few? Yet so many people do just the same. For instance, all we have to do is look at the pending family court cases over property matters. Sometimes people die leaving such pending matters for their kids to resolve. Does it help? Is it better to have a healthy relationship with a sibling, or a dispute over property (which does not come with you to the afterlife)? Or look at parents disowning kids because they married someone who they do not approve of. Why such bitterness?

Now I understand that there may be some conflicts in each of our lives that we feel we cannot resolve, despite our best intentions. Assuming life is easy for you today, situations will surely arise tomorrow where there will be a conflict with your vital few. Even if you wish to get such conflict resolved, the other person may still be hurt, and will not be willing to engage in a dialogue.

I’ll be candid and accept that I myself do not have an answer to this question. Life is hard. Situations can tend to be complex and with the haze of delicate human emotions and past baggage, it gets difficult to see clearly.

People fear to be vulnerable. We want to show that we are strong, when it can be OK to be weak. It is difficult to admit a mistake. More difficult to forgive a mistake.

Maybe that is exactly why people prefer to procrastinate rather than to build up the courage to resolve their conflicts.

Ultimately, when it is time to pack our proverbial bag to this existence, it may already be too late.

#2 Regret – Having Missed Opportunities in Life

A palliative care nurse from Australia – Bronnie Ware – wrote a book “The Top Five Regrets of the Dying” after spending time with people in their final stages of their lives. While taking care of people with terminal illnesses, Ware realized that most people have the same set of regrets, which they can only see clearly on deathbed. One regret, which she saw the most, was the regret of missed opportunities.

The regrets of missed opportunities could be many. For instance, regret of not asking your crush from college on a date? Or not leaving home to pursue opportunities in foreign lands? Or not taking the plunge (and put everything at stake) for a business venture? Or not spending time with kids while they grew up only to alienate them now?

Ultimately, you have to bear the burden of the sum total of all missed opportunities. You can never know the outcome. But if you do not try, you would have failed a 100%.

Just imagine if Sachin Tendulkar would not have pursued his passion for cricket (over his studies)?

However, not every opportunity will be worth pursuing. Life has challenges. Zindagi Ka Doosra Naam Problem Hai (Literally, “Life means Problems”). However, we still need to take decisions which hopefully we don’t regret in future.

So, the big question is how do we make a choice today, which we will not regret later?

Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, uses what he calls the “Regret Minimization Framework” to help him to take big decisions. As per this model, any decision that he needs to take goes through a question which is “Will I regret taking/ not taking this decision when I’m 80?” It was using this model that Bezos was able to leave a well-paying corporate job, to start a company selling books.

Final Thoughts

The other regrets listed in Bronnie Ware’s book are:

1. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
2. I wish I had the courage to express my feelings.
3. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
4. I wish I had let myself be happier.

Another person who profoundly impacted me on this aspect is the Late Professor at Carnegie Mellon, Professor Randy Pausch. Pausch was dealing with a terminal cancer and had only six months to live when he gave this lecture of over an hour. The insights are simply profound. Later, his experiences were also documented in the form of a book: “The Last Lecture”.

Indeed, everything gets clearer when looked at from the perspective of our limited existence. As the Stoics always reminded themselves: “Memento Mori” (which literally means ‘remember that you [have to] die’ in Latin). We looked at this earlier also.

There is a saying in Marathi, पुढच्यास ठेच, मागचा शहाणा (When one person stumbles, the others become wiser). We should follow that saying specifically when it comes to regrets. Remember: the clock is ticking every day.

Stephen Covey has famously said “The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.”

I am going to prioritize mine. Go work on prioritizing yours! All the best.

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^{Cover Photo by Steven HWG on Unsplash}