
How To Die With No Regrets - amirkhella
http://blog.amirkhella.com/2012/09/18/how-to-die-with-no-regrets/
======
nostromo
So, do _all_ the things!

It's generally good advice; but like lots of good advice, it's too simplistic.
In order to do anything, you have to not do infinite other things, things you
may regret not doing.

And the story itself is an odd one. If that rafter had actually died, the
survivors and his family would likely have regrets about the trip.

~~~
run4yourlives
I think the key is to _do the things you want to do but are afraid of doing_.

Personally, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to regret not going on an around the
world cruise, because I hate cruising, and have no interest whatsoever in
doing it at all.

I will regret not getting my pilot's license, because it's something I wanted
to do since I was like, 5 years old. So, I'm working towards doing it.

When we were children, we all had dreams of the things we could do when we
grew up. As we get older, our dreams change, but all to often this change is a
result not of us not wanting to do these things, but because we tell ourselves
we _can't_ do these things.

That's what we regret. Do _those_ things.

~~~
Swizec
When I was a child my dreams were far simpler than pilot's licenses and such
(although what kid doesn't want to be a fighter pilot one day? Especially if
Top Gun just came on the telly when they were ~5) ... all I've ever wanted was
having frivolous amounts of money. The kind of money where I could buy fancy
sports cars without batting an eyelid.

What do I do to follow _those_ dreams?

Oh and I've always wanted to swim in a sea of gold coins just like that duck
... but I don't think that's physically possible. At least not on Earth.

~~~
run4yourlives
Reductio ad absurdum, but nevertheless...

If you really want to be rich, this is a trivial problem. Learn how to be a
stock broker, and work your ass off. Problem solved. I'd suggest that if this
truly is a goal of yours, you apply yourself to achieving it. My guess is that
there are other things that you actually want more. Accumulating money is
probably one of the easier goals in life to achieve, really.

Most people place wealth somewhere down the list however.

~~~
jquery
It's _trivial_ to become rich? Good one. #RomneyEncore

Average stock broker salary, $55k per annum. <http://www1.salary.com/stock-
broker-Salary.html>

------
chunkbot
Serious question: Is it so bad to live and die with some regrets? Should we
live our lives according to a "regret-minimization" framework? Does regret,
which most acknowledge as a negative emotion or feeling, actually serve a
positive purpose in our lives?

~~~
eli_awry
Regret is different than doing something that didn't turn out well. I have
made plenty of decisions that caused a great deal of suffering - but they made
me who I am. I think what I would regret would be if I made decisions that
didn't make me into a better, more interesting person. Better to have loved
and lost, and all that. I guess that whether regret-minimization is a useful
framework depends on how precisely we define regret. I am risk-seeking, I fall
down a lot, but I never regret anything.

~~~
philh
> I have made plenty of decisions that caused a great deal of suffering - but
> they made me who I am.

And if you-then hadn't made those decisions, _that_ would have helped to make
you-now a different you.

Unless you value being "who you are" instead of "who you might have been" more
than you care about the suffering you caused, it's not clear to me why you
shouldn't regret those decisions. (Note, I'm not saying you _shouldn't_
prioritise your values like that, especially if it was mostly you who was
suffering.)

This is mostly nitpicking. I agree that there's a difference between "I regret
doing that" and "I regret not doing that".

------
alberich
So, this is it? To not have regrets, do whatever you feel like doing?

I'd have to disagree. I know lots of people that went this route and ended up
regreting how they screwed up their lifes.

What is hard about life is that what you want is not always clear cut.
Sometimes you do things that you think you want, but then time passes and you
change your mind. When what you've done is something unimportant, that's ok,
but other times those things have a huge impact on your future. That's when
you start regreting doing everything you wanted.

There is no such thing as "do this" and you wont have regrets. That's just a
romantic idea.

~~~
amirkhella
My conclusion is that to have no regrets, you gotta act more, fear less, and
ignore the status quo. After all, we only live once (until proven otherwise)

~~~
enraged_camel
In other words, YOLO?

------
zeteo
Sounds tempting, but no regrets also means no learning. Looking back to
realize you should have done differently in the past implies you're now wiser
and understand better. It means you've learned. The only way to never second
guess yourself is to be absolutely set in all opinions throughout your life;
but we call such people fanatics, I believe.

~~~
jd
I don't think regrets are necessary at all. No _mistakes_ means _no learning_.
But of course mistakes -/> regrets.

If you make the best decision with the information you have at hand you
shouldn't regret the decision you make. Retroactively the decision can turn
out to be a mistake, but those mistakes you can easily accept: at the time you
believed you made the right decision.

There's no need to second guess yourself, beat yourself up and ask "What if?".
You can make a decision and if it turns out to be a mistake, just say "whoops"
and move on.

~~~
zeteo
Yes, mistakes don't imply regrets, but IMHO you can't learn from a mistake
unless you regret it...

~~~
ahlatimer
There's a difference between not wanting to do something again because you
learned that it was mistake and regretting having done it in the first place.
I've made plenty of mistakes and learned to not do that thing again, but I
don't regret them. After all, had I not made those mistakes, I wouldn't know
that they were, in fact, mistakes.

~~~
zeteo
I think I understand what you're saying. For example, I didn't know I had a
bad back until I tried to lift a heavy monitor once and it hurt a lot.
Rationally, I know that I could not have known before, and it's good that I've
learned. But instinctively I still get a shudder whenever I contemplate
lifting something heavy, and I think that's been preventing me from hurting my
back again more than any rational thought.

------
ricardobeat
The asperger mob attacks (yes, I'm guilty of it sometimes).

Really, it's a nice post, and a simple message: do the things you want to do
with your life; you'll regret _not_ doing them. I'm 27 and this already rings
true to me.

That doesn't mean you should go out on a killing spree. Does every article
need to be didactic these days? There's nothing and no one to prove wrong
here.

~~~
platz
Good observation on the proliferation of articles that need to be didactic
these days. My guess is that it tends to grab ones attention a bit more?

------
techdmn
I think there's a little self-selection going on here in that the people being
asked are all at least moderately successful - at least enough so to enjoy a
whitewater rafting trip. I'm willing to bet that if you asked the same
question at a local prison or drug treatment center you might come away with
different ideas about life decisions and regrets. It's no surprise that
someone who has generally had things go well will regret not taking more
chances. Further more, "I wish I'd tried harder to be a rock star" is a lot
easier to say in a group setting than "I really regret embarrassing mistake X,
which took years to repair / recover from".

------
tedchs
Ob. Mark Twain:

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you
didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away
from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream.
Discover.”

~~~
gjm11
Like most quotations attributed to Mark Twain, Albert Einstein, etc., this was
not actually said by him. See <http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/09/29/you-
did/> for a bit more information; it seems actually to be from the mother of
someone called H Jackson Brown Jr., who published a book of Things His Mom
Said.

------
kiba
Die with no regret? How about live with no regret?

After all, even if you're immortal, there may things you do and did do that
you regret.

------
emiliobumachar
I believe it was the "founded eight companies" part that most resonated with
this community, not the part about following your dreams and dying with no
regrets. If, all else equal, instead of founding eight companies he had raised
eight children, this would not have made first page.

~~~
javajosh
An insightful comment. It implies that most people here have decided that
their dream involves starting a company (or two) and working with the smartest
people, and that the subject is closed.

I have my doubts as to whether or not this actually qualifies as a fulfillable
desire. This desire is large and abstract, and impossible to feel directly.
What we have to work with, in the moment, are smaller urges to do this or
that.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was a champion body builder, but what he loved was the
workouts. In "Pumping Iron" he famously claimed that lifting weights felt
"like an orgasm". Someone like that is bound to be successful as a weight
lifter.

What is the equivalent to lifting weights in business? I would guess that it
is the feeling of winning - of having made a good deal, and of effortlessly
executing whatever obligations come your way. Time and money from these
successes can be used to invest in making even more good deals, and making
execution even more effortless - and you have yourself a business.

So, basically if "making good deals" and "effortless execution" feels like
orgasm to you, then you'll get your 8 businesses.

------
wcchandler
This article definitely has its merits, but I'm going to focus on this
headline and picture.

\--

This is exactly what I'm trying to solve. When I first saw _Fight Club_ I was
mesmerized by a short scene [1]. The premise is basic -- we all have something
we want to do, but are usually too scared to do it. Be it starting a company,
asking someone on a date, or bungee jumping. We are all driven by something.
The problems come up when we stall out. We can't afford to take the risk.
We're hesitant. And for what? Security? Comfort?

To many, that's okay. That's perfectly acceptable. Finding happiness and
contention in everyday life is something most of us strive for. We're jealous.
Every evening we look forward to the weekend. And every weekend we look
forward to the evening.

Sometimes we're driven by fear. Sometimes it's ignorance. The bigger problem
is these emotions drive each other. We're ignorant of what is about to come so
we wait in fear. That fear drives us to continue waiting for the "perfect
opportunity." We're reluctant of full immersion. Which is usually the only
solution for satisfying our inner drive.

Who do we have to blame? Nobody. Nobody but ourselves. We need to eliminate
our excuses. We need to open ourselves to fully embracing the world around us.

[1] (NSFW) <http://vimeo.com/11064775>

------
scotty79
Doing more won't save you from feeling regret. That's because if you do a lot,
you are kind of person that wants a lot and there are always more things to
want and to do and to regret not doing. The only people who won't regret are
those that don't want and are content with what they have.

------
hpguy
I'm tired of this. Can't people realize that they'll change, and what they
love doing now might not be what they will love doing in the future? For
example, when you're old, your hormone dies out, I guess you would wish you
had spent less time chasing girls in order to start business sooner, learn to
play guitar or something like that.

As I change, I will want different things than what I want now. So I don't
care less what that old man in the future, with different priority, viewpoint,
and most of all, the privilege of hindsight, thinks his younger self should
have done. Just try my best and enjoy life as I feel it. Old man takes care of
himself. I'll try not leave him bad health or broke, but I'm sure he'll have
something to regret. So be it.

------
pessimizer
I am not filled with regret that I missed out on things. I regret treating
people unfairly, making careless mistakes that hurt other people, lies I've
told, and bad information I've passed on without vetting enough. People that I
didn't help out of selfishness.

The fact that I won't get to go to all of life's amusement parks? Don't give a
shit. If one of my ideas of an amusement park was measured in revenues and
profits? Says a lot about late capitalism; interesting in an anthropological
sense, I guess.

------
simonswords82
Better to regret the things you did than the things you didn't do

~~~
pdx

        But I shot a man in Reno,
        Just to watch him die,
        When I hear that whistle blowin',
        I hang my head and cry.
                      - J. Cash

~~~
michaelsbradley

        Those who have loved the poor during life
        shall meet the approach of death without
        fear.
                        - Vincent de Paul

------
kefeizhou
This article reminded me of this TED talk
([http://www.ted.com/talks/kathryn_schulz_don_t_regret_regret....](http://www.ted.com/talks/kathryn_schulz_don_t_regret_regret.html)).
The takeaway was we all make mistakes and we _should_ feel regret when things
go wrong, but we should learn from those mistakes instead of hating ourselves
for having regrets.

------
BlackJack
“We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will
tremble to take us.”

\- The Meaning of Life

Discovered this gem at Brain Pickings:
[http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/09/17/the-
meanin...](http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/09/17/the-meaning-of-
life/)

------
mark_l_watson
I think that it is not only important to do those things that you really want
to do, but as you get older to also "mix things up" a bit and make sure you do
different things every day even if they are routine: it is not good to have
two or three days in a row when you basically do the same thing every day.

BTW, I like the white water story. I also did this
[https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/117612439870300277560/alb...](https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/117612439870300277560/albums/4940887396217258001)
my favorite:
[https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/117612439870300277560/alb...](https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/117612439870300277560/albums/4940887396217258001/4940887668040138770)

------
diminish
There are regrets for both "not doing" and "doing" things. As long as you are
aware of any choices, you ll have regrets. It is inevitable.

PS: I expect someone to rant about "why regrets are indeed good, and are
falsely blamed."

------
nachteilig
I'm not sure how useful this kind of thinking would be in actual practice.
People regret the things they didn't do more than those they did? No kidding.
But it's not always possible to do everything, and it seems like people who
don't regret anything are either kidding themselves or have just learned to
tune out regret. I remember reading that they key to a study done showing
levels of happiness was mostly about managing expectations. Even hackers and
captains of industry eventually have to learn this lesson.

------
gouggoug
I know this is not the most important thing about this article, but I can't be
the only one not wondering so I'll be the one asking the question: is this
story true, or, is it yet another of these stories that people like to share
on Facebook but actually did not happen and is "only" here to make you think?

Actually, while writing this comment, I realized that if this story is just
invented, the impact it has on me is, for some unexplainable reason, way less
important.

------
anvandare
All life is misery. All misery comes from longing. To long for happiness
causes misery. To long for misery causes misery. To long for not longing
causes misery.

I wrote a much longer post, but it seems I can't properly phrase anything
without it sounding like someone blended together a lot of (bad) introductory
pamphlets on ancient philosophies.

May you find the things you need, not so much the things you seek. :)

~~~
CamperBob2
Like all religions the tenets of Buddhism don't hold up very well under
inspection. ( _Unlike_ most religions, the founder of Buddhism anticipated my
reaction and was OK with it, so he gets that much credit, at least.)

At the moment, I am, in fact, _not_ suffering, so it can't be true that all of
life is suffering. I am sure I will suffer later, but that's a question of
thermodynamics, not karma. It only means that suffering is inevitable, not
ubiquitous.

As a result, the question of how to minimize suffering in the here and now is
of greater interest to me than how to escape from some kind of abstract cosmic
cycle of attachment.

------
suhastech
In my opinion, whatever decision you make definitely has its pros and cons. I
find no exceptions.

I simply see the good that has happend due to that decision and fell good at
that moment. <http://sivers.org/horses>

It's the most unexpected things that gives us happiness and by defination, we
have little control over that.

------
mcguire
So, the bottom line is that if you die after falling from a white-water raft,
you won't have regrets?

~~~
agilebyte
The bottom line is always to have a good instructor on board no? ;)

------
dockd
The book "Stumbling on Happiness" covers this issue. I cannot remember the
exact principle involved (and I don't have the book handy) but your mind is
very good at justifying the actions you take, which is why we regret not doing
things more than we regret doing them.

------
liquidise
This is a very interesting read. As someone who has been part of a flipped
raft in a class 4 rapid, I had similar contemplations. Regardless of the
actual danger I was in, the experience is eye opening, memorable, and puts
life into harsh perspective

------
yitchelle
[http://www.ted.com/talks/steve_jobs_how_to_live_before_you_d...](http://www.ted.com/talks/steve_jobs_how_to_live_before_you_die.html)

For me, this is one of better ways to approach life. YMMV.

------
Kilimanjaro
Just die. Regrets will have no meaning, no consequences, no aftermath.

~~~
agilebyte
And just before you do it (die), do something that makes you happy for the
last time - a good way to discover "what to do".

------
alid
Beautiful story, thanks for sharing - a good reminder that you only regret the
things you don't do.

------
rburhum
Wow. Imagine if you would have tried North Fork :)

------
mynameishere
That couldn't have been more phony.

