The five top regrets of dying people

by Massimo Pigliucci

howtofindhappiness.com

Bronnie Ware is the author (a bit too much on the mystical-touchy-feely side for my taste) of the blog “Inspiration and Chai” (QED). But she has also worked for years in palliative care, thereby having the life-altering experience of sharing people’s last few weeks and listening to what they regretted the most about their now about to end lives. The result is this list of “top five” things people wished they had done differently:

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.

This is, of course, anecdotal evidence from a single source, and as such it needs to be taken with a rather large grain of salt. But it is hard to read the list and not begin reflecting on your own life — even if you are (hopefully!) very far from the end.

Ware’s list, of course, is precisely why Socrates famously said that “the unexamined life is not worth living” (in Apology 38a, Plato’s rendition of Socrates’ speech at his trial), and why Aristotle considered the quest for eudaimonia (flourishing) a life-long commitment the success of which can be assessed only at the very end.

Let’s then briefly consider the list and see what we can learn from it. Beginning with the first entry, I’m not sure what it means for someone to be true to oneself, but I take it that the notion attempts to get at the fact that too many of us cave to societal forces early on and do not actually follow our aspirations. The practicalities of life have a way of imposing themselves on us, beginning with parental pressure to enter a remunerative career path and continuing with the fact that no matter what your vocation is you still have to somehow pay the bills and put dinner on the table every evening. And yet, you wouldn’t believe the number of people I’ve met in recent years who — about midway through their expected lifespan — suddenly decided that what they had been doing with their lives during the previous couple of decades was somewhat empty and needed to change. Almost without exception, these friends in their late ‘30s or early ‘40s contemplated — and many actually followed through — going back to (graduate) school and preparing for a new career in areas that they felt augmented the meaningfulness of their lives (often, but not always, that meant teaching). One could argue that such self-examination should have occurred much earlier, but we are often badly equipped, in terms of both education and life experience, to ask ourselves that sort of question when we are entering college. Better midway than at the end, though...

The second entry in Ware’s list is more likely to make sense for Americans than for other people, particularly Europeans. There is much to admire in the work ethic of Americans, but it is also true that in this society people willingly forgo vacation time, weekends, and evenings just so that they can get more work done, even when their job is not helping to fulfill their lives but simply a means to an end. American workers are significantly more stressed than other people, and as a result they enjoy their lives much less. To add insult to injury, they are steeped in a society that actually makes fun of, say, France's short work week, or more in general, disdain the European “socialist” approach that allows people (God forbid!) to take sick leave without losing their pay, or to take care of their infant children while retaining their jobs.

The third point is also a bit puzzling from the point of view of a non-American. My European and South American friends seem to have little trouble expressing their feelings, and that goes for both men and women. But the US is, of course, the country where the quintessential icons are the tough silent guys with a gun (midwest and south) or the Woody Allen-type neurotic individual who spends a lifetime in therapy — neither of which seems a particularly appealing model to me. I suspect one’s ability to express feelings is greatly facilitated by the presence of the fourth ingredient of a happy life: friends.

Accordingly, the fourth entry — about friendship — follows the same pattern as the ones above. For Epicurus, friendship is a major way to ataraxia, or tranquillity in life: “Of all the things which wisdom provides to make life entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship.” Aristotle developed a sophisticated theory of friendship, recognizing three types: of pleasure, of utility, and of virtue. The first kind applies to situations in which one is a person’s friend because of the direct pleasure that friendship brings — for instance because you like people who are good conversationalists, or with whom you can go to concerts, and so on. Friendships of utility are those in which one gains a tangible benefit, either economic or political, from the relationship. The implication is not that one has utility friendships for the purpose of exploiting the other person, first because of course the advantage can be reciprocal, and second because a business or political relationship doesn’t preclude you having genuine feelings of affection for your partner or colleague. For Aristotle, though, the highest kind of friendship was one of virtue, where you are friends with someone because of the kind of person he is, because of her virtues. I suspect it is largely the latter — most precious and difficult to achieve — that Ware’s patients had in mind during the last few weeks of their lives.

Finally, we have this idea of letting oneself be happy. This, I think, is actually the result of what one does with the other four. Happiness in the sense of flourishing — Aristotle’s lifelong project — is the compound outcome of doing what one finds meaningful, of achieving a balance between work and other aspects of one’s life, of being able to engage our fellow human beings at both a rational and an emotional level, and of cultivating true friendships and other important relationships. It is therefore a bit misleading to think of “letting” oneself be happy. Eudaimonic happiness is actually hard and constant work, but it is the kind of work that allows you to get to your final few weeks of existence, look back, and think: wow, it really was a good life that I lived. And a bit more examination here and there will likely help you to arrive at that happy conclusion.