A Guide To Staying Safe, Happy and Sane in Retirement

Unfortunately, when we grow up we also tend to grow old, it’s disappointing of course and running out of time really sucks but here we are. So many small steps throughout our life, each one paving the way towards our own unique destiny that no one else shares. We have arrived at this point by the virtue of walking along a path that we have chosen for ourselves and if we take the time to trace our steps backwards, we’ll notice we have been on a continuous path for our entire lives becoming the person we are at this very moment.

So perhaps this would be a good time to take a look at what kind of things we have packed into our bags along the way. Maybe your bag is heavy and it’s weighing you down, it could be that you have a very light pack and consequently a lighter step to move through life with.

The following is an interesting take on the very final stages of human life, it reveals much about our need to be seen to be ok by others and how unconscious we may have been in ignoring our own deeper feelings when it really mattered.

Bronnie Ware is an Australian nurse who spent several years working in palliative care, caring for patients in the last 12 weeks of their lives. She recorded their dying epiphanies in a blog called Inspiration and Chai

Here are the top five regrets of the dying, as witnessed by Ware:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me – In her blog, Bonnie suggests this was the most common regret of all and related mainly to the choices they had made, or not made throughout life.

2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard – It was men in particular that expressed this regret particularly in relation to missing out on their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. 

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings – “Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.”

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends – “Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.”

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier – “This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to themselves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.”

Ware’s research above bears witness to the choices people have made over many years of their lives, some good, some not so good. The secret now is to recognise how those choices have affected the quality of our own current lives. Understanding that these feelings are commonly human can be of tremendous help. Knowing that what had once been undecided, rigid or hard-nosed can be of enormous benefit for personal change and, for our own state of mind but also for others that we love and wish to be more open and vulnerable with during our retiring and final years. As they say; “There’s no time like the present”