Top Five Regrets of the Dying.

When I had my breakdown/through a few years back and had the opportunity to start assembling my life from scratch, I started to ask myself questions like “what do I really want my life to look like?”

So many of us live life for appearances - to look like we are happy, successful, accomplished. But why are we so eager for our lives to look like this? Usually, it’s because we think it will make us *feel* certain ways. It will make us *feel* happy, successful, accomplished.

I knew all of the superficial things that I thought made ppl feel happy/successful/accomplished - those were what I was previously striving for, and I thought that the reason I never felt that way was bc I never really got there. I never really earned those feelings.

But is happiness something we need to earn? That seemed like a stitch up, so instead I began exploring the research and inquiring into the lives of people who truly *felt* happy/successful/accomplished. What were their lives made up of?

I didn’t want to find myself on this list here - with regrets of how I neglected to live for my happiness now, and made it contingent on the completion or acquisition of other things that may or may not ever happen.

This list is a wonderfully concise and encapsulating reflection of what we, as psychologists, recognize enriches people’s lives in real time. Relationships. Living authentically. Taking time to pause and relax. Vulnerability. And giving ourselves permission to be happy. Not when we finally have that thing or reach that point - but right here, right now, in this.