In continuing my semi-rant about life choices, how we spend our time, and seeing what’s important, I felt the need to bring in Jane McGonigal and Bronnie Ware.
Jane McGonigal gave a great TED Talk that centered on the work of Ware. Ware was a palliative nurse, someone who cares for people in the last 12 weeks of life. And she listened to a lot of dying people look back on their lives and talking about their regrets.
She wrote a book about it, “The Top Five Regrets of the Dying”, and McGonigal used it in her TED Talk (19 minutes) about the value of gaming and priorities.
The number one regret dying people had was that they wished they’d been true to themselves, not living the lives that others expected of them. The number two regret was “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.”
Catch that?
If you are curious about what they wished they’d done instead or what the other Big Regrets were, check out this article about it, or Jane McGonigal’s TED Talk.
It’s hard to get that kind of perspective while we’re rushing around with our over-busy lives. But we can learn a lot from people at the end of theirs. It’s true: You Only Live Once.
PS: we think this is a contemporary phenomenon, but it’s not new. William Wordsworth wrote about it 200 years ago.
The Bard 