“When it’s time to die, let us not discover that we have never lived.”
Henry David Thoreau
In the end, we all must ask ourselves: “Was it worth it?”
Have you envisioned the end of your life? Have you ever mentally seen yourself on your deathbed and wondered how you will feel about your life when it is over? How do you feel about your life today? How do you feel about your past? These are deep places to look, and for many people, they do not look until the end.
As a paramedic, I have had the privilege of taking care of people whose lives were ending. For a few, I was the last person they spoke to before they passed. And in all of that, I have seen that it is not the length of life that matters most, but the depth of life — not living long, but as Publilius Syrus wrote, living well.
When we reach the end of our lives, many of the things that used to matter do not matter anymore, while what we once took for granted does. In the end, we are invariably faced with the truth of how we spent our lives.
Will you be satisfied with the life you lived? We can never know for certain, but in my experience, there are pillars to a satisfied life that can apply to most of us, pillars that not only contribute to a life worth the journey, but to a life worth fondly remembering.
1. Allow Yourself To Be Happy Before You “Succeed”
“Most people keep waiting on happiness, putting off happiness until they’re successful or until they achieve some goal, which means we limit both happiness and success. That formula doesn’t work.”
Shawn Achor
One of the greatest regrets that people have when they are old is that they did not allow themselves to be happy.
I have done this for so long, telling myself I will be happy when X or Y happens. But it is a lie, and through my work in the medical field, I have come to see that there is no better place for happiness than today. Happiness is a skill and a mentality, and the longer we put it off, the less likely it becomes.
If you reserve happiness for when you succeed, most of your life will be miserable. How often do we succeed? Not often. Most of life is process, not the moment of attainment. An athlete can spend years training for a race that lasts ten minutes. Should she wait that long to give herself permission to be happy? What about the man who reserves happiness for retirement? Or the woman who thinks she will be happy when she is finally a millionaire? Or the youth who tells herself she will be happy when she earns the fancy MD prefix? Or, more subtly, the person who puts off happiness until tomorrow . . . but then tomorrow becomes the next tomorrow, and the next, and the next. The problem is that you may never arrive.
If you canbe happy before you achieve what you desire, you can be much more successful too. Happiness can precede success, because positive emotions enhance your performance, your outcomes, and your daily routine.
Happiness should not be reserved for later. Most people learn that too late. So please, give yourself permission to be happy, even if you have to make that choice every day. In the years to come, you will thank yourself for it.
2. Have A Clear Vision
“Having a vision for your life allows you to live out of hope, rather than out of your fears.”
Stedman Graham
What is your vision for your life? What do you wish to become? What is the purpose of this journey? Some people do not see the need for vision, and that’s okay, but I think that having a vision creates tremendous momentum towards a satisfying life.
Oftentimes I come across people who seem adrift in life — I should know, I was one of them. They have a stable job, they’re working towards that pension and retirement lifestyle, counting the years. The most common question I am asked at work is either if I’m getting lots of shifts or if I’m building up my seniority for those “comfy positions.” But these people are not happy. They feel like they are just existing, and whatever spark made them choose their profession is gone. They just cling to the same story most people have: keep going, retire, then maybe figure it out. Yet that is another of life’s greatest regrets: not having an inspiration to pull you through, or on the flip side, sacrificing the best years of your life to something that does not connect with who you really are.
As Helen Keller, the deaf-blind American author and activist once said, worse than being blind is having sight but no vision — and too many people live like that. If you have a clear vision, however, you’ve taken the first — and arguably the most important — step towards success. And the clearer your vision for your future, the stronger its pull will be. As Lucius Annaeus Seneca wrote, if one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable. Where are you sailing? If you know, you have much better odds of arriving there, and will likely enjoy the journey too.
3. Devote Yourself To Something Meaningful
“The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.”
Carl Jung
Life is suffering in many ways. It is not easy business, and oftentimes it leaves us bruised and aching. I have seen it come to the point for some people where they attempt to take their lives, often successfully. They hang themselves, or down a bottle of benzodiazepines, or use any variety of means, but the tragic intention is usually the same: for an end. It has always left me wondering: what keeps me from ending up like that?
The greatest answer to that question I found in Man’s Search for Meaning, a book by Viktor Frankl, a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps. He lost everything and everyone, from his life’s work to his wife and parents. You would think that such a man would come out of it with a dark view of life. Yet he came out of it with a tremendous spirit, and as a champion of hope. There is one thing he credited most with his mental and spiritual survival of that depravity: Meaning. And all of his lectures, all of his work, he summed up in one phrase.
“The meaning of life is to give life meaning.”
If we have an overarching meaning to carry us through life, we are shielded from so much of life’s winds, and most of all the ruinous ideology of nihilism that assails this troubled world.
Do you have a meaning? Something that matters deeply to you — not to your spouse, or your parents, or society at large. But to you. What makes it worth it? What makes this journey worth all this effort? What is worth living for? What is worth dying for? If you have an answer, you are one of those rare people who can make it to the end of his or her days with a grace that others cannot emulate: the grace of a human spirit carried on the wings of purpose.
4. Become a Lifelong Learner
“The adventure of life is to learn. The purpose of life is to grow. The nature of life is to change.”
William Arthur Ward
Most of the happiest and healthiest people I have met while volunteering and working with seniors have had something in common: they are learners. Even in their eighties, they’re reading books, learning skills, and practicing creative activities. They rarely vegetate in front of a television. They simply have too much to do! Boredom doesn’t seem to exist to them! (Yet how often do you see young people complaining on social media or dating apps about being bored?). These old folks were very interesting. Unsurprisingly, they also smiled a lot more than the ones who buried themselves regular doses of news— aka, psychological cyanide.
Lifelong learning is not only the secret to consistent success, but also a secret to a healthy brain and a life that grows rather than stagnates at thirty.
We are told when we are children to get a good education, but we are not told about what to do afterwards besides get a good job and live the so-called Dream. Most people do that — and they stop learning intentionally after they get that expensive piece of paper. But the nature of our physiology dictates that what we do not use, we lose. The same goes for our minds.
Learning has everything to do with our growth. What you know now may have gotten you to where you are today, but to get where you wish to be, odds are you’ll have to learn a few things. Some people fail not from a lack of opportunity, but lack of information. The more you know, the more you learn, the more you expose yourself to, the higher your chances of finding the information that can take your life to the next level.
Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is regret.
If you’re always learning, your chances of lifelong and repeated success skyrocket. Why? Because you’re not just coasting, you’re not taking on life with what you learned twenty years ago in what is now obsolete curriculum. You’re taking on life with an edge you sharpen every day. And that, I truly believe, will be a satisfying thing to look back on: that you kept learning and growing all those years.
5. Do Not Settle For Less
“If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.”
Steve Jobs
Most passions die not out of impossibility, but out of settling for something easier. We are all passionate about something, and when we do not follow it, part of us dies. We only get one shot at living, one shot at doing it right, and while it is dangerous to pursue an ideal, it is just as dangerous to shy away from it. One of the greatest regrets of all, and one I’ve already tasted, is this:
“I wish I hadn’t given up.”
But instead, we settled. We decided it was not for us. We chose to go with something easier, more acceptable, more in line with society’s expectations. We settled for a life, and in doing so, rejected another.
Why not see how far we can go instead? We’re all going to die anyway, so why not find out while we have the time? The possibility of failure is always there. But even if we fail, we gave it our all, and that’s a comfort in its own right. “I may not have gotten there, but I damn well tried . . . and I can be happy with that.” There can be pride, happiness, and contentment, even in failure. And if you succeed? Well, that’s always a possibility too, isn’t it?
6. Remember To Have Fun
“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.”
Helen Keller
Life is serious business, but it’s easy to take things too seriously. All work and no play is a great way to grind yourself into the dirt of misery — and arguably, a great way to make yourself ineffective at work too. We perform at our best when we work hard and play harder.
We will all arrive at our old age. But will we arrive knowing that we had fun, too? Will we be the sort of people who can make fun even out of the twilight of our lives? I have met couples who have been married for sixty years and still play and act like two young newlyweds. I have met folks in retirement homes who still know how to get into mischief. Yet at the same time, I have gone weeks without letting myself have fun, to play, to enjoy, and I meet too many people in the medical field who are all work and no play — and burn themselves to the ground.
At the end of our lives, we will appreciate our hard work and the fruits thereof, but we will also appreciate the times we have fun — the joy, the laughter, the excitement, the adventure. In the end, a satisfied life is one that warms us with memories of its adventures.
Work hard. Play harder. You’ll be glad you did.
7. Take Care Of Yourself
“The greatest wealth is health.”
Virgil
In the emergency medical field I have met people who had it all — the house, the cars, the fortune — yet their success was tainted, because they gave up their health while chasing it. We all age, but we do not all age equally. Some age with grace, while others age disastrously, and while part of that may be due to factors outside your control, much of it is up to you.
One of the greatest regrets people have, in my experience, is simply not taking care of themselves — not only because it hurts them, but because it puts a burden on those they love as well. Health is wealth, but it is also a gift you give to others, because when you take care of yourself, you are also, secretly, taking care of those who love you.
When I think of this, it is always the old couples that come to mind, the ones that aged well and live together with a youthful love even when they are in their twilight years. There is something beautiful about seeing two old folks in their armchairs in their home, smiling and laughing, while the old photographs of them in their youth smile on as well. They take care of each other, but just as importantly, they took care of themselves. And that exemplifies one of my favorite quotes from Jim Rohn:
“I will take care of me, for you, as long as you take care of you, for me.”
Take care of yourself not only for your own well-being, but for the well-being of those who care about you. When it comes down to it, you will be proud that you were a faithful steward of your greatest possessions: your body and mind.
8. Cherish Those You Love
We all hear these regrets from someone, often ourselves:
“I wish I was more present with my kids.”
“I wish I cared more about those who cared for me.”
“I wish I spent more time with my parents.”
“I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.”
One of the most important things in life is the people we share it with. Your family, your friends — they are your greatest treasure, and when they are gone, you will realize that. If we wish to be happy with our lives, we can not take for granted the people we love. As I have experienced with the deaths in my family, there is no knowing when it will be too late — and when it’s too late, it’s too late.
Solitary success is an empty trophy.
What does a dream come true mean if you’re alone? What is the top of the mountain like if you’re the only one up there? What does financial freedom matter if you’re always lonely? What does a fancy estate matter if you haunt it like a ghost? What if you end up at your “finish line” only to realize there’s no one there to applaud you? As the great Roman philosopher Seneca once said:
“There is no enjoying the possession of anything valuable unless one has someone to share it with.”
Do you have someone to share it with?
Do you have people in your life who love you for who you are?
That is treasure.
People work towards riches and power only to sacrifice their relationships along the way, and when they arrive, more often than not, the people who become their so-called friends are not true friends, but opportunistic vultures. So cherish those you love. Spend time with them even if it feels inconvenient. Love your parents, your siblings, and your friends. Laugh with them. Cry with them. Be with them. We all must let go, in time. But if we did not neglect them, their loss, however painful, will also warm us with the memories of the times we shared.
Living Well
“As long as you live, keep learning how to live.”
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
What is the good life? What is the life worth smiling about? What will leave us satisfied in the end? That is up to you. Everyone has their own answer, but I believe that these are part of that answer: the pillars of a good life.
Life is not easy. For us, it can take a lifetime just to learn how to live. We cannot be perfect about it. But we can always try, and we can always strive to plant the seeds that tomorrow, next month, next year, and fifty years from now will bloom into flowers that we can gaze upon. A life well lived is the greatest gift you can give to your future self. So live deeply, lovingly, and freely, so that when you reach the end of your days, you can meet it with a smile and a nod and say, “It was worth it.”