Imagine that you have a time machine and can go forward in time to the final moments of your life. What would you ask yourself?
What would you say you had enjoyed? What would you regret not having done? What advice would you give yourself? This can be a sobering, and occasionally upsetting, exercise. However, it can also lead to insights as to what is important to you. Armed with this knowledge, you can plan how to make the very most of life.
In her book “The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying”, Bronnie Ware identified 5 of the top regrets she discovered in her work as a palliative care nurse. These were…
- I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
- I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
- I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
- I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
- I wish that I had let myself be happier.
I think these insights are powerful. The message I take from this is to follow your dreams, spend time with people important to you and choose to be happy. It’s easy to get caught up in the day to day bustle of life and forget these key lessons. However, it is important to remember what’s really really (really) important.
After all, just imagine… you jump into your time machine and go to the future. Your future self is lying in your bed and tells you “you’re going to have a great time, enjoy every minute”. Wouldn’t that be great? Wouldn’t it make you excited about the future?
You might be asking how this fits in with money and financial planning. I believe that real financial planning is where life and money meet. We aim to design a plan for your money that enables you to live the life you want, both now and in the future.
It’s this combination of freedom and peace of mind that is important.
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