Pride, regret and indifference
By: Paul Davy
Tags: Life Lessons, Pride, Indifference, Regret

I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Steve Jobs

Do you ever wake up, look in the mirror and assess your life? Do you ever spend a few moments thinking about whether you want to do what you are about to do?

Probably not.

I know I don’t. But I am starting to think it might be a good thing to do.

How many people live on automatic pilot? How many people just follow the rules of modern-day society? Get a good education, get a well-paid job, retire with a good pension. Then they die.

The biggest regret of the dying is the following:

I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

Imagine if we knew that this was our fate. If we continued doing things the way we are currently doing them. That we would get to the end and just regret all the things we didn’t do. Things we wanted to do for ourselves. The things that were true to ourselves.

Imagine you have the power to change this outcome. With small changes, you change the course of your life. How would you want to feel about your life at the end?

Pride

One definition of pride:

‘The positive feeling of the things we have done or not done.’

Instead of feeling regret at the end wouldn’t we want to feel pride?

What if the main goal in life is to be proud of the life we have lived? To be at the end of our life. Laid on our deathbed and to be proud of ourselves.

This is a hard thing to do. I am not sure how many people can say they have achieved it. But we can strive for it.

The most recent thing in which I have felt proud of myself is this morning workout. Getting up at 5:50 am. Stretching. Jogging. Sprinting. Lifting weights. The war of the two voices in my head. One telling to get up and go run. The other telling me to stay in bed. Getting up and doing it anyway. Coming home and feeling good after.

Knowing I feel better and the rest of the will be easier for it. That I am building strength to cope with difficult things.

Regret

There is something I haven’t told you yet about my morning workouts. I recently fell off the wagon. I didn’t do the workout for a week.

It started with a pain in my knee. An ache. I want to play the long game with this workout and continue to do it for all my life. Into my 80s. My 90s. My 100s. But it plays on your mind. You don’t know whether it’s just soreness to work through or possibly an injury that would get worse if I push it. So I took a day off. Then a second day off. Then it was the weekend. I don’t do the workout on the weekend anyway.

Then I hurt my neck in Jiu-Jitsu training on Saturday. It was a bit stiff and I struggled to look left. When I woke up on Sunday I could barely lift my head. Monday rolled around and it was still pretty sore, so I skipped the workout. Tuesday, I was still stiff, I missed the workout. Wednesday, I did feel better, but I skipped the workout.

Every morning those two voices were at war in my head. One telling me to get up and go workout. The other telling me to stay in bed. That I am injured. That I will hurt myself even more. That I could do some really bad damage longer term.

Not doing the workout bothered me. Every day. It played on my mind. I didn’t want to do the workout because it was hard. But missing out on the workout bothered me. I knew it was doing me good. I was getting fitter. Getting stronger. Building personal resilience. Building mental toughness. Feeling proud of myself.

Maybe this feeling ‘bothered’ was a feeling of ‘regret’. The regret of not doing the work. The work that would lead me to who I want to be.

Indifference

Other things we do, we can feel indifferent. No pride. No regret. We can take it or leave it.

Your job for instance. Initially, you are excited. You enjoy the thrill of working with new people. Working in a new environment. Doing new tasks. Learning along the way. You feel pride when you successfully negotiate to do those new things.

A year down the line you have got to grips with the job and you are on top of things. Things aren’t excited anymore. You have perfected most things. You don’t feel much pride in the things you do. But you don’t feel any regret either.

You get up and go to work. You work hard. You don’t mind the job but you don’t feel fulfilled at the end of the day.

You just feel indifference.

A grey land of emotionlessness. Like a robot. You turn up. You do the work. You go home.

No pride.

No regret.

Perhaps when you find yourself in the land of indifference, you need to change things up. You need a new challenge. Experiment and try new things.

If you find a new source of pride, keep doing it.

If you find a new source of regret. Dump it and move on.

Takeaways

Maybe the feelings of pride and regret act like a compass. They give us direction in what we should be doing and should not be doing.

If your morning workout gives you a sense of pride then keep doing it. If you feel a sense of regret when you don’t do it, then that just re-affirms this is something you should be doing. Get back on the horse as soon as you can.

If you feel a sense of regret after doing an act, then stop doing it. If you feel a sense of pride in not doing it, that just re-affirms this is something you should stop doing.

These feelings don’t need to be grand. They can be small. A small sense of pride is a small win. You feel just that little bit better for doing it. A small regret can be just a little niggle. A small thing that just bothers you a bit.

The trap is falling unto the well of indifference. Finding yourself in that grey land. No pride. No regret. No compass. If you find yourself here, move on. You need to find a new challenge.

Start with the end in mind. Remember, when you get to the end of your life, do you want to feel a sense of regret or a sense of pride?

Footnotes

Bronnie Ware was a palliative care nurse. She cared for people in the last weeks of their lives in their own home. During her time she noticed recurring themes in the regrets of people on their deathbed. You can read the top five regrets here:

Originally published at https://www.paul-davy.co.uk on October 12, 2019.