How To Die With No Regrets | Hacker News Reader

How To Die With No Regrets

blog.amirkhella.com

136 pointsamirkhella81 comments

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.

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.

> do the things you want to do but are afraid of doing.

Perhaps this advice works best with people who have no self-destructive desires. For those of us who are merely human, though, we have to compromise.

Compromise is pretty much exactly the thing you shouldn't do.

Is there something you really, really want to do that falls into this category?

Yeah. Lots of things. I'm a complicated person full of contradictions, foibles, and flaws. For every door I open, another one closes. There's no way to do everything I want. So I follow the path that I think will lead to greatest long-term happiness, even if, in the short-term, I have to make sacrifices.

Exactly. We are not machines and we can't program ourselves even if the mass media and the motivationnal websites and that under 24 startup guy who built a webpage would like you to believe it.

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.

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.

It's trivial to become rich? Good one. #RomneyEncore

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

> 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.

The American "You can do/get anything if you really want it" reality distortion field effect with its corrolary "if you didn't get it it's because you didn't really want it".

And here we all move on to the next personnal development website with Mr Moustache and the Pavlinians at the helm. What an emotionnal bumpy ride.

The easiest way to get rich is to be born rich.

The second easiest is to be born lucky.

After that, it's a lot of work.

That's an easy one to answer, especially around these parts. Come up with a business idea and take a shot at a startup company. Best case, you'll hit the jackpot. Worst case, it'll be a hell of a ride and you'll come out with a better idea of what you're doing.

so how about things like this: I am married but I meet another woman who I cannot help falling love with. Shall I continue hang out with her, or stop seeing her(which I will probably regret)

One should always evaluate his emotions with a great amount of care. Be clear that I'm not suggesting in the least that a person should live 110% in the moment all the time; in fact the opposite.

That said, I'm not sure why a person would live the rest of their life with someone they don't love out of some sort of imagined duty. You certainly aren't doing yourself any favours, and odds are you are making your wife miserable too.

If you have truly found someone that you "cannot help falling in love with", then why wouldn't you be with her?

You're willfully sanitizing the anecdotal/hypothetical question.

Imagine he loves his wife but is also falling in love with another ... Only he is afraid to pursue.

Should he pursue or not? If not, why not? Is his sky-diving hobby any less "destructive" than his philandering?

Ah ... like the blind Colonel once quipped: "when in doubt, fuck."

You are married, but you did not say if you are in an open relationship ;)

It is not indisputable that 5-years old should dictate what an adult should do.

My advice is to not regret having regrets. It's natural to have regrets so jumping to acceptance is the best method to avoid the self-help dependency cycle that leads to a lot of wasted time and money. At least it works for me.

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?

Missed regret serves to say, "Next time, I shouldn't be so timid. See? Nothing bad happened."

Acted regret serves to say, "Why did I do that? I should have known better. I'll remember not to do this again."

Minimizing missed regret is just quieting your ego and moving forward so opportunities don't pass you by. Minimizing acted regret requires seeing all possible futures and avoiding ones with high probabilities of failure (but that's quite boring).

> Is it so bad to live and die with some regrets?

It's a good question. Too much paper has been spent on rehearsing the same story of "Do things now because when you are old you'll be old and it wont be as fun and you'll regret it because you'll be old". That is, in some parts, absolutely true but I feel it would be better distilled down to the basic motto of 'Do more'.

Even with that you'll still have regrets. My mom had a serious stroke early into retirement and all of her cross-country planning went away with it. Even though she's done this type of trip before she still regrets not being able to do it again. Regret is part of life, we will always feel like there was one last thing to do, we don't die with all of our dishes washed.

It's not the dead who have regrets, it's the living. I mean, you're dead. What do you care?

My life is meant to be lived. I'm alive for a very short time. I refuse to spend it looking over my shoulder; second guessing everything. If I do something stupid or harmful I made amends (or try too). I redeem myself for my own peace of mind.

Look it boils down to this: what does every faith on the planet teach? I'm not typing about the differences or whose god is stronger or better, I'm talking mythos - they all teach that it's all about how we treat each other. That's what it all boils down too.

I'm mortal. Of course I have regrets. I don't live for the moment (like dogs - or do they... I have doubts about that) I don't believe regrets are "negative". They're a part of life. We've all had missed opportunities. We've all treated someone poorly. It's life.

If I step out of the house right now and get hit by a bus, it's the living; they'll have to sort my life out. But I hope I have the luxury of facing death with time to reflect on my own life and realize, hopefully, that I lived; had a great time; and left my mark.

I hope not. My life is filled with regrets. I have done many things wrong that I wish I could undo, and missed many opportunities that I wish I could take advantage of.

And it is often only in hindsight that I can tell the difference. Often, because I reflected on it, I learned something from my mistakes, but regret came with that learning. I suspect that for most people the only way to avoid regret is to avoid reflecting on life.

It's better to regret something you have done, rather than regret something you haven't done.

Unless it's heroin.

That can lead down a difficult road.

How often does someone think long and hard about A vs. B, pick one, and then regret it later? Sure it might have been the sub-optimal choice in hindsight, but we're not clairvoyant and often try to be thoughtful in our decision making. Can you really regret such choices?

Then there are those activities that we didn't do and didn't even consider. Not spending time with family before it's too late, not finishing a big project due to laziness, etc. These I'm more prone to regret.

I am reminded of a quote by E.B. White that is a bit of a personal motto:

"I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult."

I don't think people regret single event or one particular chance they missed due to some over thinking or inexperience. What they usually regret is the way in which they lived their entire life. They usually regret the framework they used to make their day-to-day decisions to choose their work/people/opportunities. That is something you can definitely avoid because you can always do something about how you live your life.

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.

> 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".

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. Whether regret-minimization is a useful framework depends on how precisely we define regret. I am risk-seeking and fail quite often, but I never regret anything.

No, its not bad to die with regrets, but it is soul crushing to live less well with them. Talk to someone who had something they were going to do 'some day' had the opportunity to do it, didn't, and now it is forever lost to them by life's circumstances. Those regrets are the worst.

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.

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)

In other words, YOLO?

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.

Realizing you could have done things differently doesn't mean you should. If you're happy with where life has led you there's nothing to change.

Living/dying without regrets can mean accepting that you shouldn't have done things different. If you had done something different then, changing the threads in the tapestry of your life, you wouldn't be you today.

Well put.

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.

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

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.

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.

Regretting things you have done is different to regretting things you haven't done.

If you regret nothing you have done at the end of your life it probably means you never made any serious, life-ruining decisions or you were incredibly lucky. That in itself is something to contemplate long and hard (luck or tragedy). Significant risks come with significant ramifications and sometimes taking a risk doesn't work out. Perhaps the question if you never took such risks is would your life be any different if you had taken the riskier path.

You don't walk away from accidentally killing someone or destroying their life with just a "whoops" unless you have something seriously wrong with you.

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.

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?

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".

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

    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

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

It's quite possible that Ralph regretted doing whitewater rafting before his death.

Probably not, especially considering he didn't die.

This article reminded me of this TED talk (http://www.ted.com/talks/kathryn_schulz_don_t_regret_regret....). 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.

“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...

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... my favorite: https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/117612439870300277560/alb...

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."

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.

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.

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. :)

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

http://www.ted.com/talks/steve_jobs_how_to_live_before_you_d...

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

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

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".

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

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

That couldn't have been more phony.

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