Don’t Waste Your Life

along the lines of needing to be reminded more than being instructed, I came upon the four biggest end of life regrets that people have, or share on their deathbeds. And, as you might expect, it’s very profound. And if you spend a little bit of time thinking about them, they’d become even more profound. And as somebody who does fancy myself a thinker, I thought a little bit about about it a little bit more about it, and wanted to share some thoughts in hopes that you will also benefit and do some of the same reflection and introspection, and take any necessary or actions that you want to take and service of you getting what you want in life is so short, long, in a lot of ways, but it’s so short. And the more we can be doing the things that we want, and living how we want with the people that we want and thinking the thoughts that we want to feeling, the feelings that we want to feel, obviously, the better off then will be the whole idea that what I’m working do is help people help you get better, so you can live how you want. And that can take the form of your physical body, or your your your thinking, your mindset, your attitude, your work, your finances, your relationships. And that’s what I’m interested in. Because that’s what I’m interested in for myself, I recognize that we are all works in progress, that we are human doings, while at the same time, human beings. And I think that there are constant improvements, or constant opportunities for us to be getting a little bit better. Now, you may hear that and think that that’s terrible or exhausting. And that’s absolutely fine. It’s just my perspective on it. So the end of life regrets. The first one is that I wish I wouldn’t have worked so hard wish I wouldn’t have worked so hard. And when you read the statistics, and they say the vast majority of people do not like their jobs, they do not like their work, then that’s an obvious one. If you do not like how you are spending your professional life, you will get to the end of your life. And you will be filled with regret, you will be sitting there be like, gosh, I’ve wasted so much time I wasted my life doing BS work and service of what to earn money to pay debt down, I get it on a percent, I need money. And not everybody is going to be fortunate or in a position where they can do work that they really love doing or want to be doing. But I assert that there is a way to find meaning and purpose and value in everything that we’re doing. So is there an opportunity to change your perspective to change the way that you’re viewing and thinking about the work that you’re doing? If it’s a hard no for you, then it’s a hard no for you. But if you say well, maybe there is What do you mean? That I think that there is an opportunity to be reframing and thinking about what am I really doing? Where is the positive impact that I’m having? How am I helping and serving others that can change the way that you’re viewing your work? So that you aren’t going to get to the end of life and think oh my god, I just wasted everything. So that’d be a huge bummer. I tol it’s all a bummer. The reality that so many people get to the end of their lives and are filled with regret is, is a huge bummer. It’s probably more powerful language I can use but it’s super sucky. How’s that? Pretty good. Number two is I wished I’d had I wish I had had the courage to live a life more true to myself, not the life that others expected of me. So on whose terms are you living? Whose life are you living? Whose expectations and systems are you living under? Because we’re all operating under somebody’s expectations or somebody’s systems, if it’s family that everybody’s everybody in my family is a doctor or a lawyer or we’re real estate investors or we’re Republicans were Democrats or we’re Cowboys fans, we’re 40 Niners fans or I’m Working at, you know, XYZ company and we all go to this place and have lunch or we go to this country club or this is what we do for fun, whatever, whatever. It’s everywhere, the neighborhood, the kind of car that you drive, why are you doing what you’re doing? Is it because it’s what you want? Or is because you are going with the flow and being carried along by the current currents of life, I think that if we’re not paying close attention to that, then we will almost most assuredly be carried along and pulled along by some of those currents of life. And it’s not all bad. Not all bad. I don’t know. What I’m encouraging you to do is to ask those questions and say, this is interesting. Why do I find myself doing the things that I do and following the same habits and patterns that I consistently follow and have been following for a really long time? And it appears that everybody else in my family in my orbit? It’s kind of doing that same stuff? Is this good? Yeah, great, keep keep good going, then, is this not what I want? How can I make it a little bit better? Or is this absolutely not what I want, I can’t stand this anymore, well, then stop doing it, figure something else out, make a plan get moving. Number three is I wish I’d stayed in better touch with my friends. And this is certainly something that everybody feels. And because everybody feels it, that just means that it’s a simple remedy, that’s a simple fix. It’s picking up the phone, or I guess, still picking up the phone and sending a text or sending an email or getting back on touch on social media. That being said, probably move it off social media as quickly as you possibly can. And get back to not that it’s not authentic. It’s weird. Social media is just kind of a weird thing. We endeavor to have authentic interactions with the people that we care most about. I believe that life is the sum of our interactions with other people. So if you are interacting with people that you love, and you care for, and you get to do that consistently, then I think you’re going to have a much richer life. This, that this is a top regret of people suggest to me that we are not doing that. And I know I need to do a better job of, of nurturing and fostering my friendships and the relationships with people that are most important to me. And that I would like to have deeper relationships with. So it’s something that we’re all feeling. And it’s the remedy the fix is way, way closer than then then then we think that it is. And very rarely, very rarely are you going to reach out to somebody and find out that the relationship is just, it’s not there anymore. So just make it happen. That’s that’s a pretty simple one. And then finally, I wish I’d let myself be happier, too. That’s like, getting hit with a ton of bricks right there. Hmm. I wish I let myself be happier. Are you happy? Do you allow yourself to be happy? It’s a big question right there. You keep doing what you’re doing? Are you going to get to the end of your life? And look back and say, Gosh, I wish I’d let myself be happier. Are you pretty happy? I don’t know.

Stop wasting your life. Stop wasting your life. What we’ve been given is an amazing opportunity to be alive. You are uniquely you, you are worthy of and deserving of having a happy and rewarding and meaningful and impactful life. But we’re not entitled to it. None of us are entitled to it. We’re not entitled to be happy or to have things that we want. We need to work for them. We need to be intentional about them about the recognition of what it is that we want, of what who it is we want to be with what we want to be doing all of those things, and then working towards actually doing those things. Sounds easy, does hard, I get it. But it’s a cautionary tale that so many people have said the same things that I don’t want to end up. In fact, that would be a tragedy, knowing it’s like once you know that this is a trap that we have set for ourselves that people are falling into all the time. When I see it. Am I going to fall into that same trap? I don’t want to I don’t want to waste my life. I want to live on my terms as much as I possibly You can. And there’s plenty of stuff that I, you know, I can’t just do everything that I want to do whenever I want to do it all the time, obviously. But how do I get closer to that? How do I get closer to really living on my terms. And I think that there are some pretty practical simple things that I that I work to do. And that I want to encourage you to do. And I want to also put into your mind this morning. Or whatever you listening to it, it’s morning for me. So I’m drinking coffee, although it could be afternoon, because I drink coffee in the afternoon to only to drink coffee to in the day, probably one o’clock, then I knock it off a little bit too much information for you probably, here’s the reality is that, on average, our minds wander about 50% of the time. So half the time, your brain is just wandering off doing something else, you sat down to do one thing. But then your brain said, No, I’m gonna go over here. You were thinking about this thing. And then all of a sudden, you’re we’re thinking about something totally, other than what it is that you had intended to be working on it thinking about. And I think that that’s more of a bug than it is a feature. I think that it’s evidence that what you are doing, there’s a couple of things. First and foremost is that we have not trained our brains to be focused on the task at hand, the thing that we are that we’ve made the decision to do. So being able to lock in and zero in and focus and keep our mind trained on one thing is an absolute skill. And there’s been talked ad nauseam, we’ve exhausted the conversations about low IQ, short attention spans. And it’s probably true. If we do not teach young people ourselves to be able to stay on one thing for a long period of time, then we’re probably going to be in trouble. But this has been a conversation that’s been going on for a really long time. So your mind could be wandering half the time. So if you feel like there’s just not enough hours in the day, Well look no further. If you’re working an eight hour day, that means your mind could be wandering for hours of it. So you want to get more done, you want to be more focused, be more focused will help you to get more done. So pay attention on where your brain is going audit your thinking. So audit not only where the actual direction of your mind, if you lose your place all the time, just be thinking about what you’re thinking about. But then also what you’re giving your attention to and what you’re putting into your head, you get, you put garbage in your gut and you get garbage out. There’s, you know, you are what you eat. If you eat, you know, frickin ding dongs all the time, you are going to turn into a dingdong. And if you put divisive hatred into your head all the time, you are going to be a divisive and hateful person. If you put People Magazine BS celebrity gossip into your head all the time, what’s going to happen is you’re going to have conversations about BS celebrity gossip, or fantasy football or online gambling or geopolitical this, that and the other thing, whatever. If that’s what you want, then then do more of that. Just a function of audit your thinking. Audit your time, how it is, how is it that you’re spending your time? Again, you feel like there’s not enough hours in the day? I can’t get enough done? Well, how are you actually spending it? If we now know that our minds are wandering half the time? What about what you’re actually doing with your time, like, what are you actually doing, you could just be sitting there, kind of eyes roll back in your head sort of staring off into the middle of nowhere. It could be that or it could be that you are just Mindlessly scrolling social media, or I don’t know. What’s important is that I want you to know, again, if you feel like you’re spinning your wheels, if you feel like you’re not getting to where you want to go, if you are concerned that you will get to the end of your life and have those same regrets that those other people have had. Well need to take a hard look at what it is you’re actually doing. Audit your time audit your thinking, audit your activity, all of these things. And then finally audit your relationships I just talked a minute ago but weirdly wish I spent more time with the with people I really wanted to spend time with my friends. Well who are you spending time with them? And are these relationships getting you the life that you want? Again, life is the sum of the interactions we have with other people. That’s good or bad. double edged sword right there. If you’re spending time with a bunch of eight holes that you can’t Stand? Well, I would, I would urge you to stop doing that. You should stop doing that. And you should stop doing it quickly. And I think the ultimate question to be asking is, is this thing? Is x, getting me closer to the life that I want? Is it getting me closer to what I want? Or is it taking me further away from it? Is this thought, is this line of thinking, getting me closer to what I want? Or is it taking me further away from it? Is this action that I’m currently taking? Is it getting me closer to the life I want? Are these thoughts getting me closer to the life I want? Or taking me further away from it? That’s the question. And of course, it all presupposes that you have a clue or you know, what it is what the life you want is what that looks like. wish I hadn’t worked so hard? Well, what would you prefer to have been doing? What would you what would you like to be doing? I wish I’d let myself be happier. I wish I’d let myself do what I want to do instead of what is expected of me. Okay, what is that? How clear? Are you in what that actually is? Because we need to have clarity on what matters. You must know what matters. What matters for your work? What would make you feel like you were doing good work? What matters for your relationships? What what kind of relationships would you like to have? What kind of thinking would you like to be doing? How would you like to be spending your time? How would you like to be spending your energy? Figure out? That’s what I want. That’s what matters. And now how do I start doing what matters? Pretty simple. But again, super hard. If it were easy than everybody would do it. It’s not easy. It’s doable. You can do it. Maybe all these other people can’t, but you certainly can. And all of it comes down to being a good steward of your most valuable resources of time, attention, energy, and money. So once you know what you want, this is what I want. This is what matters. And each one of those areas, this is what I need to do in order to do what matters, the actions that it takes, the thoughts that it takes. And then you allocate those resources, again, time, attention, energy, and money based on those things of what’s what’s most important. And then I think you’re living in an aligned life, and you’re gonna get closer to the life that you want. So you can start to get the results that you want, but you have to stick with it. Because what you need is a sustainable strategy and sustainable in the sense. Not that it’s going to be carbon neutral, or anything like that. But if that’s what you want, then that’s great, sustainable and that you’re actually going to do it, you’re going to consistently follow through on these things. And as we consistently do things, we get closer to them. virtuous cycle, takes form, take shape, you start thinking better, start having better relationships, start doing better work, everything’s better. And you get to the end of your life and you look back and you say, this has been great. I’ve done good work, had great relationships. The world is a better place because I’ve been here. If you can say that, and that’s awesome. That’s what I want for you. As always, do your part. Doing your best