eNewsletter May 2012
Dear Everyone,
Hi! And how are you all? It was a great, great month of April. I had a two week working stint in Brunei, went off for a 10 day holiday in Sydney with great friends and in between celebrated my birthday! It was fun, it was exciting and I wish I could do this more often.
The other day, I was reading an article entitled, ‘Regrets of the Dying’ which I found to be really, really insightful. The writer of the article had worked for many years in a hospital, dealing with dying patients and in the article writes about the most common regrets these people had. I not only enjoyed reading this article, but it also inspired me to want to write about it in this newsletter.
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Firstly, let me start by asking this question, “Don’t we all have our personal regrets in life?” I am most certain the answer would be yes for most people. Regrets are I think part and parcel of life; the big difference is that some people have more and some have less. I think it would be good to strive to be in the category of those having less.
In his book, ‘Success Principles’, Jack Canfield asks this question, “What would you do with your life if you knew you couldn’t fail?” This is a very profound question indeed and I am most certain that you would have done many more things with your life if you knew that failure was not an option. The main thing that held you back was the fear of failure and the fear of getting out of your comfort zone. Ironically it is this very reason that is the cause of your regrets. My view is that “it would be better to have tried and failed rather than to have not tried at all”. Failure always teaches you more than success ever will. If you never try, you would never know if you could do it. And if you never fail, then you would never learn how to make it right. In both instances, it is most certain that you would have less regrets.
Some ways to reduce our regrets:
a. Do it now. Don’t procrastinate. Take that holiday, see the world. Go places you haven’t been before. Do things you haven’t done before. Don’t wait.
b. Do what makes you happy. Never, ever postpone happiness. You only live once, and it would be a tragedy if you were never happy in that one life.
c. Stop complaining. There will never ever be enough money, there will never ever be a right time, and there will never ever be the right situation etc. Life is about treading into the unfamiliar with many factors unknown.
d. Just do it! In many cases, the best approach to overcoming fear is to just close your eyes and to take that jump. You might get nervous and even terrified, but once you’ve jumped, you may pleasantly discover that all the ‘big monsters’ you anticipated were merely shadows.
And now back to the article, ‘Regrets of the Dying’. There is one key difference between the regrets of the dying and the regrets of those still living. The dying do not really have time left to correct their mistakes or to do new things. The living on the other hand do. Hence I do hope that all of you will take action now to reduce the items in your list of regrets. Time is passing and will not wait. Do it now!!
Thank you for taking the time to read this. Have a great month of May. Take care.
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