columnPsychologist Thijs Launspach is a psychologist and stress expert and author of the book Breeding pressure. He marvels at modern working and gives tips every week for more happiness and less stress at work. Today:
The start of the new year is traditionally the time to make plans. Not surprising, because most of us still have some time off before the hectic pace of everyday life starts. A hectic pace in which you are all too easily swallowed up by the short term: your resolutions, your to-do’s, the gas bill, your inbox or the everyday family concerns.
It’s a time when you can look at your life with some distance and ask the question: am I still on the right track? Am I living the life I want to live? Before you know it you have blinked your eyes and another year has passed…
I always think of Bronnie Ware around a new year. Ware worked as a nurse in a hospice in Australia, where she cared for people who spent the last weeks of their lives there. She and her patients often looked back on their lives and invariably asked them this question: ‘What do you regret?’.
Pain points top five
As Ware collected her patients’ answers over several years, she compiled their lessons and insights into a booklet with the very American name The Top Five Regrets of the Dying (in Dutch: If I could do life over again).
Ware’s top five gives an overview of what is apparently really important in life. And no, it doesn’t say: ‘if I had received that promotion I would probably have been much happier’, or ‘I would have only been in the gym three times a week to lie on the beach with a six-pack’, not even ‘if I had made that trip around the world my life would have been complete’. The pain points that came back in the top five were, in reverse order:
5. If only I had allowed myself to be happier.
4. If only I hadn’t lost sight of my friends.
3. If only I had the courage to express my feelings.
2. If only I had worked a little less hard.
1. (the most shared regret:) If only I had the courage to live my life in my own way, instead of conforming to the expectations of others.
Ware’s list shows what you really want to avoid in life. So if you don’t want to regret it later, you know what to do in 2023.
Thijs Launspach is a psychologist and stress expert. He is the author of, among others, You are already enough – Mental health in a disturbed world (2022), Work can also be done (2020) and Fokking busy (2018).
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