I was with some friends on Friday night at a Christmas party. Penny was particularly joyous and happy. As a hard working president of our local historical society, she was thrilled to have its headquarters filled with her friends and members of the community she loved. I hugged her good night and thanked her for having us. I learned the next day she died in her sleep and thought; what a way to go. Though she could have lived a longer life, I am not sure she could have lived a fuller life. She filled her life with family, friends and gave back to her community with joy.
Do you know the top 5 regrets people have at the end? 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 hadn’t worked 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. I am pretty sure Penny did not have any of these regrets.
So I asked myself, what if I began today with the end in mind? If I know these are life’s biggest regrets, how do I try to live without them? Looking at the top five, I think it means to do your best to throw away your fears, step over them, push them aside, bury them, whatever you need to do to live authentically. After all, we only live once and there are no guarantees about tomorrow.
What stops me from living out loud? My fear is of others judging me. However, the reality is that most often people are so consumed with their own fears they are too busy to think about me at all! If they are judging me, then maybe their own lives are lacking focus in which case maybe I do not value their opinion anyway. What if we spent our energy encouraging each other to be authentic instead?
The top five fears are all about having enough courage to be true to your heart’s desires. Courage is when you are fearful of something but you persevere through it. So where do we find courage? I look to other people’s life stories to show me examples of what courage looks like. I can also look at times in my own life when I have found courage. Where do you look for courage? Maybe others can look there too? Who has inspired you to live without regrets?
“A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
(Aspiring to be a) Joy Spreader
