I have in recent years been drawn to the obituaries section in newspapers. Whether this habit has been prompted by brooding over my age, COVID and intimations of my own mortality, I’m not sure.
Whatever the reason, I find it gratifying to read about long lives well-lived. I enjoy the stories of people who have achieved astonishing things during their lifetimes.
Reading obituaries has led me to ask two questions:
What does a life well-lived mean to you?” and “How do you want to be remembered?”
A recent exchange of views on LinkedIn led me to promise a blog post on this topic. Serendipitously, a related article caught my eye in this week’s Sunday Times magazine.
The post is by Daniel Pink, whose new book ‘The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward.’ is due to be published this month.
In the article, Pink explores the topic of regret and suggests that reflecting on missed opportunities can be time well spent.
Pink draws on the example of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, who in the early 1990s wanted to create a systematic way to decide whether to make the move from banking into selling books through the worldwide web. Bezos decided to project forward to age 80 to look back on his life and to reflect on what he would regret. He came to the conclusion that what he would most regret was not having tried. Not trying would haunt him far more than the success or failure of a career move. This made his decision an easy one.
Projecting forwards in order to reflect back on your life at 80, offers a mechanism to test out whether you are living the life you’ll want to be remembered for. Will you identify any (potential) regrets that you still have the time and opportunity to avert?
You can use this approach either when you have a major decision to make in your life, or to review whether your life is going in the direction you want it to.
Writing your own obituary
Imagine you too are 80 and looking back over your life and that your life has been a fulfilling one. Imagine someone reading your obituary at your funeral, so write it in the 3rd person. You should be pleased with what is said about you.
Prompts:
- Do you want the emphasis to be on your accomplishments? Your career history, qualifications and awards? Your interests such as sport, music, gardening, travel?
- How do you want to be remembered? What qualities come to mind that best describe you? Life and soul of the party? Compassionate? Funny? Ambitious? A raconteur? A thought leader?
- How did you approach life? Did you seize the day? Were you risk-averse? Was life a game to be played? Did you put others’ needs before your own?
- What will people miss about you? What impact has you life had on others?
Mind the gap!
- Thinking about your life now, is there a dissonance between the here and now and your life at 80?
- What needs to change in order to ‘deliver’ the obituary you’ve written?
- If you do have a major decision to make, what regrets would you have by not making a change?
Pink suggests that by projecting forward, you can anticipate regrets and act accordingly. Whether that is, for example:
- Asking someone out on a date
- Making a career change
- Going travelling
- Becoming self employed
- Getting married or divorced
Writing your obituary is an opportunity to realise your version of a life well-lived.
I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than regret the things I haven’t done. Lucille Ball
