10 most common regrets in old age.
What are the older people's biggest regrets? Have you ever thought about what you will be sorry for doing or not doing when you get old? Is it too late to change and fix something when you are an elderly person? How to have a regret-free life and be a happy person in older age?
A lot of old people share their biggest regrets in life. In your declining years, you run the risk of greatly regretting that ...
- regretting that you followed the crowd hoping for approval
Chances are good that you will regret every time you said yes, even though you wanted to say no so badly. People regret the fact that in the end they became not themselves, but someone else - both physically and emotionally - in the hope of impressing others, earning their approval and “blending in” with the environment or the get-together. You may be sorry that you didn't have the courage and confidence to do what you really wanted to do, and you gave up under the burden of the environment and circumstances.
- being sorry for not taking all possible chances
A new profession, work in an unfamiliar field, moving to another country - all this involves a fair amount of risk. Risk is generally the reverse side of chance. Perhaps you thought that the risk and discomfort from a possible failure are too high, and you did not dare inviting someone you like on a date, going through an interview in a cool company, leaving the person with whom you feel bad, going free, apologizing to those who have been offended by you...
If you do not do this, then, most likely, you will still be tormented by the question "what would happen if ...?" And you will regret missed opportunities later.
- regretting that you neglected your health
Tips on how important it is to exercise, eat right, get enough sleep, drink clean water, and quit bad habits are likely to get bugged. And yet, the harm of a poor lifestyle to our health is difficult to overestimate: it gradually destroys our body and brain, leads to numerous problems, including heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and Alzheimer's disease.
The good news is that preventing this is easier than dealing with the consequences later. And even if your lifestyle is far from healthy, you should not sprinkle ashes on your head: try to take the first step towards good habits right now. And do not let your mind fool you, giving you more and more "compelling" reasons not to go for a run today and not go to bed early.
- deploring living inside the "bubble"
In some way, this applies to the chances already mentioned earlier - those that you may be missing right now. Staying in your bubble means depriving yourself of the opportunity to make new friends, eating the same thing in the same restaurants. Working in the same place all your life, clinging to a relationship in which you are unhappy, so as not to be alone. People regret doing the same thing for years. Don't try, don't take risks, don't allow yourself. Most likely, you will regret all of this one day.
- regretting that you betrayed your dream
It can be anything: the memoirs that you talked about so much, but never sat down to write it, the guitar that you never learned to play. The Disneyland trip you promised your kids and then they grew up. Unfulfilled dreams, goals that you forgot, hobbies that you did not devote time to.
- regretting complaining endlessly
Problems existed, exist and will exist at all times: as they joke on the Internet, “as recent events have shown, the penultimate ones were better”. You can and should talk about them - but not complain for years, without undertaking anything and dragging out an unhappy life, but look for a way out of the situation, a way to change everything for the better.
No one argues that life is difficult - but there are moments of joy in it, and it is on them that you should concentrate. Look for the good, focus on it, and change what you don't like.
- regrets for neglecting relationship
Making friends is not that difficult - at least for those who do not have obvious problems with social interactions. It is much more difficult to build a truly deep, strong connection that will last for years. It takes our efforts and time, but if you don't, in old age you will regret that you missed all those wonderful people who you met along the way.
- being sorry you read little
The key to knowledge, the ability to move to other worlds, live many different lives, in addition to your own, pleasure that is always at hand, fuel for the imagination - this is the great gift of books. And whoever says anything, books can make us not only smarter, but also kinder, better, wiser. Of course, not all of them, the main thing is to spend proper time and effort on their selection and study.
To deprive yourself of all this is a loss and cause for regret.
- regretting that you didn't play enough
We have been taught for a long time that games are “not serious”, this activity should be left to children. This is not really true: if you read or listen to Brené Brown, professor of psychology at the University of Houston, she talks a lot about how important playing and games are to our mental health, relationships with others, and our ability to create.
Games can be very different for your taste. This can be a pillow fight, and an evening of board games, and arm wrestling, and home theater, and charades, and the opportunity to just fool around with friends and relatives. The key is to keep playing to keep your mental health healthy, relieve stress, and strengthen bonds with others.
- having regrets that you were too addicted to work
Nowadays, it is no coincidence that there is so much talk about the so-called “work-life balance”, the balance between work and the rest of life: there are more and more workaholics, vacations are getting shorter, in some countries women are no longer paid for parental leave. All this leads to the fact that most of us are working more and more. And in old age – the person usually extremely regrets it.
According to palliative care nurse Bronnie Ware, author of the bestselling book Top Five Regrets Of The Dying, all the male patients she cared for complained about the fact that because of work, they missed their children from growing up and enjoyed the company of their loved ones very little.
Perhaps now it seems to you that changing your life is an impossible task: it takes too much effort and impossible steps. But in essence, it's about listening to yourself, making informed decisions, getting rid of unnecessary things, leaving what is important and enjoying it every day.
