A nurse who counseled the dying has compiled a list of popular final regrets. I have to confess…I was disappointed. These aren’t very interesting, but I suppose they are sincere and honest.
1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
I have no problem there. No problem at all.
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
OK, maybe that would affect me…but I don’t know what I’d do otherwise. I have a job I enjoy, so there’d have to be some other alternative activity I’d rather I’d been doing.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
Heh. Not a problem, again. Although I do admit that I’m quicker to criticize than to praise.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
Huh? They should be regretting that they haven’t kept in touch with me!
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
I’m pretty happy, but I can’t imagine feeling this way at all. If dying happy was what mattered about your life, I’d have to plunge into the ‘hookers and blow’ cliche.
So I thought about what regrets I might actually have.
“I regret that I have not eaten the hearts of all of my enemies.”
“I regret that I still don’t understand X,” where X is whatever the latest concern in my field of science. Right now it would probably be the totality of mechanisms responsible for translating genes into form. I’ll only have to change that question if I live another century (I’m optimistic).
“I regret that those physicists still haven’t delivered on my time machine.” That’s right, physicists, I might curse you with my dying breath.
“I regret that you haven’t brought me a priest to strangle.”
“I regret that I’m fucking dying. STOP IT!”
As i’m getting to an age where it’s approaching fast, i will make my final regret now. (It ain’t gonna change in the interim, anyway.)
I regret not doing more to combat the idiocy of religion. When i retire from full time work, i will try to make amends.
I regret not immediately pursuing my masters while I was still young, with no children, and very little debt.
I regret wasting so much of my life trying to be a deist, universal deist, or agnostic. I should have just gone straight to reality.
I regret not getting my depression treated fifteen years earlier.
And that’s about it.
I will probably regret wasting so much time on the internet.
I regret that I wasn’t so fly like a G6.
I regret the intellectual presuppositions of an evolved primate (how can you be so stupid, Plantinga?), which in other circumstances might have had me gibbering like a Dembski or Berlinski (and which, regardless, take time and effort to work around).
Glen Davidson
I regret not becoming a world dominating conqueror and subjecting all of the people of the world to my flights of fancy and tastes in music, beer and torture.
Rev:
You’d make us all drink Coors Light? That’s harsh!
DAMMIT
IT’S IN MY HEAD NOW
(with the wrong lyrics)
I’m too young to have final regrets, but right now I regret the years I spent as a privilege-soaked antifeminist zealot libertarian. I’m trying to make amends now. And I regret my pervasive reliance on things plastic and wrapped in plastic. And I kinda regret that I’m going into a field where I probably won’t have spare resources to help save the world. And most of all I regret that til now, I have spent no time whatsoever learning even how to help.
Glad I’m young. Hope I don’t waste too much more time.
I think a lot of those, especially number 2, amount to “I regret that I had to make choices and that there are no do-overs”. How many people have the realistic choice not to work so hard? How many deliberately chose not staying in touch with friends as opposed to deliberately choosing other ways of occupying their time such as working for a living, ferrying the kids to activities, doing the grocery shopping, cleaning the house . . .
I don’t see, “I wish I hadn’t alienated my children/ cheated on my spouse/ embezzled from my employer/ gambled away the kids’ college money” on that list. These seem like the regrets of decent people who wanted to live responsibly.
I hope this nurse who counseled the dying had the good sense to help them to see how their choices were not made in a vacuum and that they did lead honorable lives.
I don’t think the issue is one of honor.
I regret allowing the love of my life to elude me twice, and for 25 years before capturing her heart. I regret marrying the wrong women twice in the meantime. I don’t regret the children that resulted.
To me the point is, these are all extremely normal regrets that reference nothing at all religious, but only the basic human “quality of life” stuff.
It reminds me of those few days in Sept 2001, when I, like so many people was glued to the telly, hearing story after story, listening to phone call recordings, etc, of people who were literally undergoing a near death experience (which some of them did not survive).
All these people who knew or feared that they were about to die reached out, whenever they possibly could, for a last word or message to the people they loved. Not one person during those days (and once I realised what an opportunity this was to see how religious people might actually be in a “foxhole” situation, I paid very close attention) mentioned reaching out to God, or being happy they were about to see God, or anything in any way God related. It was really rather amazing, when you think about it.
My conclusion? There may be surprisingly few religious people in foxholes either.
Yes but that’s just a run up to the real torture.
I regret I’ll miss the great zombie uprising of 3011. *sigh*
You mean your BeeGees obsession?
not to mention… FLYING CARS??
hello??
I know people have been dabbling, but seriously, get on with it already.
“I regret not being able to take you with me, assholes.”
Thud.
You can’t mean………NOoooooooooooo!
Not Watney’s Red Barrel!
I’ll regret that scientists still haven’t come up with immortality or something close to it.
If it’s possible, we will do it but probably later rather than sooner.
I regret taking so long to learn how to be a good husband that I had already poisoned the marriage by the time I could actually appreciate it.
I regret failing to pay attention for one second Tuesday morning and totalling that poor guy’s car.
Oh, and the woman I’m seeing now hasn’t called me back in a couple of days, so I probably will need to regret whatever it is I did to screw that up.
Captain and Tennille.
Muskrat Susie, muskrat Sam, do the jitter bug down in muskrat land
I have (hopefully) decades left. I don’t have much to regret… yet.
PZ, shouldn’t that one theoretical dying regret be that you have not YET eaten the hearts of all your enemies?
I mean, it’s a given that you’re going to come back as a lich or a Herbert Westesque abomination (with tentacles!) or an animated short of a man-eating My Little Pony or something.
What I’m going to regret is that after I die, I won’t find out TheTruthAboutLife™.
Somewhere I picked up the notion that after I died I would find out what everything means (and, of course, that I was right about everything ;^) from some omnipotent being. Even though I’m totally, logically convinced that there are no omnipotent beings, and that when I’m dead I will be DEAD in every way, this feeling that I will understand all of life after I’ve died still lingers.
Wishful thinking? Of course.
But wouldn’t it be nice to know TheTruthAboutLife™?
I regret regretting.
As a former Hospice nurse (and Atheist), I remember counseling people along similar lines of thought. Ultimately, the goal was to redirect the person to the good choices, the accomplishments they made. Occasionally, you would have a pt that didn’t have many of them–these were not easy cases. I can specifically remember two cases where the men died scared (to death, literally) for their immortal soul. The Pentacostal types were often scared for the same reasons, just not as bad as these two guys.
I had been an Atheist for five years when I started at Hospice–I left there with even greater resolve that religion does far more harm than good.
Rev
muskrat love
I will think of a suitable punishment when I’m done with my brain-wipe.
scotlyn@11
You might enjoy this video of Mark Knopfler singing “If This is Goodbye” since it is based upon events of 9/11 such as you describe.
As for the regrets listed, I can understand how a person could have any of those. As for my own regrets – past is past. I make the best out of what I have and where I am now. I think, overall, the pluses outweigh the minuses.
SteveV:
-Nah. True torture would be making people drink the transubstatiated blood of Christ…
“I regret that I’m fucking dying” strikes me as a good one*. I also regret not being better at taking criticism. I regret that the only real reason I regret not being good at taking criticism is that it’s hampered my ability to improve my ability to do science, not because I really want to be a better person.
*I’ve been dying at least once and they did stop it. I regret that one day attempts to stop it will fail.
I regret that the year 2001 couldn’t get a do over. Never saw a year in such bad need of it, at least locally. (I lived in NYC at the time.)
I hope I have plenty of warning. Because I want to have a big deathbed scene. And with some of my last breaths, gasp, “fetch me a priest! I need a priest!”
When the priest comes I’ll whisper, so he leans closer, “fa…therrr?”
(he leans closer)
“fa…. ??”
(he leans closer)
Then I’ll grab his throat in my teeth and hang on until I die.
I regret that I’m regretting.
I think that covers it for me.
I’ll regret that scientists still haven’t come up with immortality or something close to it.
Great. A society run by immortal super-rich oligarchs. And, perhaps immortal slaves. One of the little rays of sunshine that gets me out of bed each morning is the awareness that the disgusting old men who run the world will eventually die.
“I regret that I still don’t understand X,”
Shouldn’t that be “I regret that I still don’t understand XX,”
or XY.
I may regret that I don’t understand XXXX or Foster’s.
Judging from the comments I’ve seen from beer lovers, understanding them would seem the more regrettable.
Beer aside, I find Marcus Ranum’s teeth-in-the-throat scenario most attractive.
I regret nothing.
Here’s an interesting article on what people talk about when they die, written by a hospice chaplain. She says they mostly talk about their families … and she mostly just listens.
It’s an interesting article because the writer is accused by her divinity professor of failing in her duty as chaplain: she apparently ought to be leading them to God. Her response is that overt religion in such situations is not important. Listening is. Also
Basically, this is religious humanism. Make a perfectly reasonable point about the value and virtue of the secular world — and then sneak in religion by claiming that this is how we know and understand God. As an apologetic technique, it can be very effective at convincing those on the edge of atheism to hang on to God, and not lose their faith. Redefine how you see and understand God. God is how we live our life; who we care about; what we value. God is the secular world. Very slick. Subtle. Clever.
I see a lot of religious humanism. I think that people who are very sincere about seeking truth, keeping honest, being reasonable, making sense — and being ‘religious’ — end up with religious humanism. They have their spiritual cake and yet can still eat it here.
My feelings on this are mixed. On the one hand, you can just read it as humanism with poetic imagery added. If they’re really committed to making sense they end up faitheists: atheists who have a boner on for faith. You can cut away the religious language and you don’t lose a thing. Most of the time such believers sound like us, making the very points we would make. What we believe about God doesn’t matter as much as how we live our lives. Yes.
On the other hand, though, religious humanism still privileges faith; still allows supernaturalism to sneak in; still encourages a lack of clarity and honesty in how we think. It also still encourages — intentionally or not — an intrinsic scorn aimed at those of us who are not only more clear-thinking but more plain-speaking. A chaplain has God and will somehow listen and respond in a better way than someone without God will.
I don’t know what I will regret on my death bed. Perhaps I will regret having a death bed and wish I’d just had a sudden and unexpected accident.
I regret every tiny, minuscule mistake I’ve ever made.
That’s probably a psychological thing, though.
A society run by immortal super-rich oligarchs. And, perhaps immortal slaves
Immortal slaves with all the time in the world to plot their takeover…
Let’s face it: dying sucks. No one wants to die. Stop pretending it’s all wonderful.
There are some things in my life I regret doing and other things I regret not doing. I regret being rude to and snubbing one person who was trying, awkwardly, to be friendly, something I misinterpreted. I regret not telling Phil Gramm that he was an arrogant ass who only cared about the rich. Things like that, none of them major.
I know I will regret it all in the morning.
dianne
You may be mistaken.
My regret would be not finding Pharyngula earlier.
If the choice is getting more bed-ridden feeble and demented, my death would be welcomed.
I regret not telling Phil Gramm that he was an arrogant ass who only cared about the rich.
If it makes you feel any better, I told Phil Gramm that he was an arrogant ass once. I regret that I didn’t say it in a good sound bite that the reporters would have noticed.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says:
Amen!
(You know what I mean.)
Really? You’re one in a million then. Most of us aren’t so lucky, or possibly demented.
You know what I regret?
I’ve crushed my enemies.
I’ve seen them driven before me.
I never stopped and took the time to really hear the lamentations of their women. I mean, I heard them… but I didn’t hear them, you know?
The begging for mercy from the warriors, sure, I embraced that and really took it in, in all of its pathetic excess. I took the time to appreciate the way that the cowards ran from me, while the blood of their allies dripped off of my blade and the smell of their fear hung in the air like a curtain. But the cries of sorrow of their mates, especially as they clutched their newly-orphaned children? Never really appreciated it the way I should have, and I’ll always regret it.
Some airhead on the Australian The Age website has used this list as some kind of platform to advocate Pascal’s Wager. He’s getting a thrashing in the comments.
And push the retirement age even further back for those of us who don’t?
Thanks, jerkface.
I regret not taking that road trip to Graceland.
w.r.t. the time machine. We cant break the laws of the universe unless you want us to invoke an omnipotent entity. Is that what you want? You want physicist to invent god? Cuz we’ll do it just to spite the lesser sciences. :P
This is pretty melancholy for me to read, since a young woman I’m aquainted with passed away today. It’s easy for those of us who are young to think that we’ll have so much time for everything we want to do, but there are those who won’t get that chance.
Even with being harshly reminded of that fact though, I can’t say I have all that many regrets. I should probably call my mom more, and I could stand to blow off lab a little more often (I work too many weekends). But I’m happily married to my favorite person on earth, I’m in the home stretch of a PhD in a field I still enjoy, and I have the world’s silliest, squishiest beagle mix who was rescued from a shelter three years ago. I’ve had a good 28 years, and I think however much more time I end up with, I’ll have few regrets.
Let’s face it: dying sucks. No one wants to die.
Yep. But it’s important that the other guys die
. . . err . . . what? Oh. Hello.
I’m not willing to waste very much more time regretting. Too much is already lost and time runs close, precious.
There are a large number of mistakes that I have made, or been party to, that I do not regret. In fact, some of them I consider to be feathers in my cap if not simply illuminating and instructive and generally hilarious in the retelling.
I suppose if there is one thing that I could change it would be to hold my mother’s hand just one more time before she died. I didn’t get to do that and now here am I today, happily going towards my own end, missing that last imagined moment but not regretting some imagined loss. Rather, cherishing all the times I was so lucky to hold her hand over the years.
Because I can measure the gains and advantages of my life in terms as simply as holding hands with my mother or holding any other of the multitude of hands I have ever held, and because I can recall the smiles and kind words, even the quizzical glances and earnest confidences of so many people I cannot imagine ending up in a state of regret. Much more likely seems the fate of continuing instruction and amusement and endearment. That is, if experience is any guide.
Am I alone in this?
*in the interest of full disclosure I have turned the ironisnark knob down to zero*
I haven’t so much failed to take opportunities as just not got them in the first place.
Bingo!
Besides, honor is for Klingons anyway.
When Cheney was attending a campaign rally in Wilkes-Barre, Wife happened to be driving up I-81 at the same time his moroncade was heading south. So she rolled down the window in the minivan, held her arm out the window, raised it on high, made a fist, and extended the middle finger skyward.
I regret that I was not there to join her in this well-earned salute.
We cant break the laws of the universe unless you want us to invoke an omnipotent entity. Is that what you want? You want physicist to invent god? Cuz we’ll do it just to spite the lesser sciences. :P
Go for it! If you succeed, us lesser scientists will admit that physicists are the very, very best and most pure. Except for mathematicians, of course.
But it might be that you don’t have to break any physical laws, just understand them better. I don’t think that anyone seriously claims that our current understanding of physics is perfect. Maybe time travel* is possible, if we just understood the way the universe works well enough to do it. Highly unlikely, but more likely than inventing god.
*Apart, of course, from forward, at a constant (?) and uncontrollable rate.
Now in my 78th year, I’ve come to the conclusion that worrying about regrets is a total waste of time. At all times in my life, I did the best I could under the circumstances and attitudes existing at that time.
Can I see that I could have done better sometimes? Of course! The fact that I did otherwise is just how the game of life goes.
What I’m trying to do now is make every day I have left count as much as possible, and that includes relaxing and having a good time once in awhile while I’m still mobile enough to do so. I’m getting ever more active in blogging and working with fellow non-believers to thwart the theists attempts to turn my nation into a christofascist theocratic hellhole. That keeps me very busy with no time to waste on regrets.
Chemistry is the most fundamental science. The others may depend on math, but where would math be without lots and lots of drugs?
Also, I don’t suppose all you people who don’t regret mistakes will share the secret of how you just switch off THAT emotion, either? >.>
My work involves people facing end of life (the products I work on are designed for such people). None of these people says “I wish I had spent more time at work.”
They all say:
1. I wish I had spent more time with my family
and a distant second:
2. I wish I had gone on that trip to Nepal I never found my way to getting around to.
(variations on 2: had had the guts to propose to Miss X, more time on my hobby, started that business, gotten my college degree, learned to play the piano, etc.)
Nobody talks about bigger cars or houses or more money.