Five Regrets Of Dying...

For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives.

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When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.

It is very important to try and honour at least some of your dreams along the way. From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.

2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.
This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.

By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do. And by creating more space in your life, you become happier and more open to new opportunities, ones more suited to your new lifestyle.

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.

We cannot control the reactions of others. However, people may initially react when you change the way you are by speaking honestly, but in the end it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level. Either that or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life. Either way, you win.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. 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.

It is common for anyone in a busy lifestyle to let friendships slip. But when you are faced with your approaching death, the physical details of life fall away. People do want to get their financial affairs in order if possible. But it is not money or status that holds the true importance for them. They want to get things in order more for the benefit of those they love. Usually though, they are too ill and weary to ever manage this task. It is all comes down to love and relationships in the end. That is all that remains in the final weeks, love and relationships.

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.

When you are on your deathbed, what others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again, long before you are dying.

Life is a choice. It is YOUR life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly.

Choose happiness.

A Lifetime Of Compromises...

The second thing that came to my mind, maybe "put into my mind" would be more appropriate, when I thought about arranged marriages was: Compromise.


And the more number of people I speak to, the more it appears that people have a really dim view of marriage, cause no matter who, everyone gives you only one suggestion: Compromise. And on a whole, it seems like a very depressing situation.


Compromises have to be made, I understand that. Which relationship does not include compromises? But why do you never hear your parents telling you, "beta, now that you will be going to college and making new friends, remember to compromise". You never hear that, do you? Why do friends never advice you to "compromise" in a relationship? For smallest of shortcomings, your gf's will tell you to leave the guy, but never compromise. Maybe cause in all other relationships, you have an exit. Not so in marriage. You're supposed to make it work, no matter what, compromise and stick around. Marriages are meant to be forever.



What I found really funny was that people enter marriage with a whole lot of pessimism. I can understand why everyone should be so scared. (It's funny we still go ahead and get married, humans I tell you!). There are so many bad examples around, that one can't help but think the worst. I know I am guilty of the same. So I can understand that, but what baffles me is that, even while thinking of a partner you choose to compromise with your wants and dreams.


I told M that I would really like to spend the rest of my life with someone who loves travelling (So we could both travel all the time). He looked at me as if I had gone mad, then laughed, then told me I was being silly. It's a stupid thing to look for in a marriage, said H. A didn't mock outright, she knew I was serious, but she looked at me, her hands gesturing her incredulity,  and calmly asked me, "do you think once you get busy in your married life, have kids and all, do you think you'll find time to travel at all? You'll be happy to even find a spare relaxing Sunday to chill at home, but travel?" And I actually wondered if I should look for aspects like a love for travelling and reading, something I feel are essential in my life partner. Were they really a "must-have"? Or was I being really short-sighted?


And then I remembered the times I was happy in 2010. The time when I actually touched clouds in Bhutan, not fog, clouds. When I climbed Tiger's Nest. It was a tiring journey, but one look at the view from the top was enough to melt away all tiredness like snow on a sunny afternoon...the view was just beyond words. And I was so happy to be there. I felt so lucky to be there. And at peace. Like anything was possible. Then how proud I was when I went all the way, alone, to Mysore, made new friends, walked my way to museums and palaces and Udipi Restaurants. How excited I was, travelling through Hyderabad in an auto rickshaw, to be discovering a new city. And how adventurous when I roamed the markets of Amritsar in a cycle auto rickshaw, so much fun eating parathans and lassis and haggling over phulkari dupattas, like generations of Punjabi women must have done -you see, a got to live a slice of someone else's life(and that too the good bits), a life I had only read and heard about -what could be more precious? And how lucky I felt to be sitting on the steps of the sacred pool and watching the Golden Temple transform into a mesmerizing beauty at 5am in the morning, with a gorgeous orange in the background, golden shimmery water everywhere and the sound of early morning bird song...I felt I was in heaven. And I realised, the only time I was happy in 2010 was when I was travelling...discovering new places, new people, new food, new language...a new world.


I remember growing up wanting to travel places. I remember telling myself as a child that if one day I come across a Genie and if I get to make one wish, I should first ask for 100 wishes, but if I am not allowed to, then I should ask for a chance to travel the world.


Do I still think it's a frivolous thing? I turned to books, cause I couldn't travel to Spain myself, and Egypt and England, but I could atleast read about them. I know what they wear and eat and sing in Italy and France and Scotland and Australia, not because I travelled there, but because I read about them, and in my head, atleast, I have seen all those places. Should I then compromise on something that makes me truly happy?


"Agreed", M said. "But then let's say, you get married to a travel writer and you're happy for the first couple of years and one day while rock climbing he falls down and breaks his leg. He's paralyzed forever. What would you do then?" I was just stumped for a moment. It's like saying, don't venture out on the streets cause people are dying! Why should you compromise even before you actually need to compromise?

I don't understand. Shouldn't we be compromising in short term relationships, cuase they anyway won't last a long time and you can always just walk away. And shouldn't we, when looking for a long term relationship, try to seek one where compromises, atleast not a plenty many, will not be needed?


And what will really happen if you compromise? You give up on things you want and settle for something else, something easily obtainable. But then what? Do dreams just die like that? I don't know, I think they might just hide, pull themselves back and hide in some corner and sulk and sulk and sulk. And the day you find a way to fulfil those wants and dreams, they're going to wake up and shake things up and your pretty little house is going to fall apart.


When I go to my local library, there's a whole section for romance novels, and at first I thought many teenage girls would be taking those books home. What I instead observed over the years, was that not teenagers, but married women read romance novels the most. Women, who have immersed themselves in the mundaneness of their lives, settled into domesticity,  they seek to live the dreams they gave up through these novels. That aunty who is now married with kids, who settled for a finance guy, she lives the life she wanted, through someone's else story, through someone else's life. Is she truly happy? I think she'll say yes. But deep down, she has squashed her dreams and prepared herself for the kind of life she has. She has learnt to live with compromises, with someone more suitable. But deep down, she wants something else, perhaps someone else, she knows she can never get. Some people don't see anything wrong with it. I do.


It's natural, that when you don't find what you're looking for in one place, you'll try to seek it somewhere else.  If you don't find everything that makes you happy in your spouse, it's very probable that you'll seek it in someone else. Unknowingly. Sometimes knowingly. Extra marital affairs anyone?


I have compromised too. And what I have realized is that compromises are tricky. You are happy compromising as long as things are going according to the plan. The minute they go awry, you start complaining how and how much you compromised. The bitterness creeps in, the dislike shows. The name-calling starts. And like help, compromises mean zilch, once you mention it. The minute you point out how many compromises you've made, that sandcastle you so painstakingly erected, gets washed away with the waves your words create.


So yea, maybe an ordinary girl like me can't expect to meet Mr.Perfect, but surely, I can hope to find Mr.Perfect-For-Me? And I promise, I'll compromise if I find him, but only if he promises to take me to ***Egypt first.



***I remember we were watching some travel show featuring Egypt and I sighed and oohed, and fascinated with it all, I said to my sister, "If I ever get to go back in time, I'll want to go back to the time of these Egyptian kings and queens." And my dearest sister said, "Do you think you'd go back to the era as a "queen" huh? You'd probably be one of those common Egyptian citizens, probably even a manual labourer and look, life for them was so hard, building all those pyramids and what not. I wouldn't want to be them!" Sigh, yes, she was always the more practical one. And I was always living in my head! :|

Miracles Happen...

"We sit silently and watch the world around us. This has taken a lifetime to learn. It seems only the old are able to sit next to one another and not say anything and still feel content. The young, brash and impatient, must always break the silence. It is a waste, for silence is pure. Silence is holy. It draws people together because only those who are comfortable with each other can sit without speaking. This is the great paradox."
— Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook)

And how difficult it is to find someone like that.

*****

"In time, the hurt began to fade and it was easier to just let it go. At least I thought it was. But in every boy I met in the next few years, I found myself looking for you, and when the feelings got too strong, I'd write you another letter. But I never sent them for fear of what I might find. By then, you'd gone on with your life and I didn't want to think about you loving someone else. I wanted to remember us like we were that summer. I didn't ever want to lose that."
— Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook)

Sometimes, that's all you can do. And it doesn't matter much, but you hope, that in writing that letter, somewhere the truth is conveyed. Somewhere, you naively hope, that the wind that dries the ink of your words, will also whisper the message into their ears.

MickyMouse...

I will not be able to wear a hairband when I am 28+, 'cause it wouldn't be age appropriate :( #ThoughtsThatGiveNightmares

Clove Pink...

I must learn to love the fool in me- the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries.” ~Theodore Isaac Rubin

The Naked Soul...

Everyone wants that love marriage, where you meet "the one", your soul mate and then decide to get married cause you can not stay away from each other, no never, and so you tie the knot that will keep you together always, forever, la-la-la. And having found the love of one's life, one imagines oneself in a red Mercedes convertible driving into a brilliant sunset, with one's hair flying in the wind (and maybe one can surely add a flimsy Audrey Hepburn-esque scarf flying in the wind for added aesthetics.) How romantic and all that one thinks. On the other hand, no one desires an arranged marriage, for it is so cold, for that's how it appears, very cold and very businesslike. Where you meet random people, decide to get to know each other over a cup of chai/coffee and then talk over phone and if you're lucky meet in person to dissect the other's character and coldly weigh his/her "value" and if he/she fits the bill, get married. But something similar happens in love marriages. You meet a random person, maybe at a party, maybe in college, maybe at work and decide to talk and then maybe get to know each other over a cup of coffee and then blah blah...you know the deal. Yet, we look at arranged marriages with such trepidation, and love marriages with our rose-tinted glasses. I wonder why such unfair treatment?

Probably because in a love marriage, you know the person well enough(get to know in "biblical sense" too?) and you know for sure that this is what you want, this is who you want to be with. In an arranged marriage, how well can you really get to know the other person during the courtship period?

The first thing that went through my mind when I thought about arranged marriages was-sex. I can be all modest and choose to ignore it, but it's an important aspect of a romantic relationship and I have seen couples break up, after 2 years, cause the girl wasn't ready to commit fully or the guy was no good. Physical compatibility is as important as emotional and intellectual compatibility and while you can judge a person's emotional nature and find out if you both match intellectually by talking to them and spending time with them, there's no sure way of knowing if you'll click in the bedroom department as well, unless you actually give it a shot. Which surely can not happen in an arranged marriage (You can't be kissing every guy your parents/friends approve!). So essentially you enter into an arranged marriage with your fingers crossed, hoping that you both will be great together. Definitely loads of luck and some divine intervention I thought.


After talking to a lot of people, it seemed like, yes, it was one of the main drawbacks of an arranged marriage. A colleague from work is in the process of getting a divorce 'cause apparently the guy had some problem. Another one is getting a divorce after two years cause the guy still refuses to do it with her. A friend's friend has got a divorce 'cause the guy refused to even get near her. And when my best friend got married, I did wonder if she would be comfortable doing it on her first night. Wouldn't it be weird, I thought, to get intimate with someone with whom you've never been intimate, at all? And say if you do get intimate and find out that it was a total dud and then what? What a damper that would be! And you're stuck now, cause you're married! ***


And so I told H about my doubts. And what he said made much sense, atleast to me, though I think I have yet to fully figure this thing out. Physical attraction is a tricky thing. You can never know. A friend recently told me that she had the most awesome time with a fat guy, and she never ever even dreamt of going anywhere near a fat, sloppily dressed guy. Forget a fat guy, I feel zilch attraction toward even some of the good-looking, impeccably dressed guys. I was looking for some kind of pattern that I can trust to guide me. But can you really know? Can you ever guess who can take you on a ride in the clouds and who will leave you staring at the ceiling? What however, one has noticed is that physical attraction comes when you like the person, really like the person. Physical intimacy comes when there's emotional intimacy.

I remember a guy friend once told me, I loosely paraphrase, to seduce a woman touch not her skin, but her mind. When I look back, I realize, the guys I have strongly been attracted to, physically, I have most definitely been very very strongly attracted to their minds. I remember liking a guy, who, what shall I say, wasn't exactly James Dean in the looks department, but I loved him, cause I was so seduced by his mind. Which also explains why I just can not bring myself to like this another guy, who's is physically great looking and all that but I don't remember ever going "wow" while talking to him. "Yawn" most of the time.


So there, I am still confused, but maybe one doesn't need to worry all that much about the sparks and chemistry and getting to know your partner in the biblical sense before tying the knot. Our parents, after all, did have babies, no? I guess then, strong physical attraction will be there if you like that person and are emotionally and intellectually compatible.


***Same could hold true for other qualities as well. Really that girl who comes carrying the tray, all shy and coy and salwaar-clad, do you really think she's all shy and coy and wears salwar-kameez all the time? Or for that matter, I always wonder, what would be a right response to your husband's "Have you had sex before"? If you say no, you make him happy, and you hopefully live a happy romantic married life. If you say yes, brace yourself for a barrage of questions, loads of insecurity and a possibility that it might ruin your chances of a happy romantic married life. I always wonder what guys would prefer to hear. Would they prefer to hear a no, never knowing if she was lying or being truthful, believing the best and forgetting about it or would they be okay, truly okay with hearing the truth. I know most guys will say, "I would rather you be honest with me and tell me the truth", but I wonder, deep down, if they'll really be ever okay.

Age...

Who's that man she asked me.

Which man, I questioned.

Arey the one with white hair.

Puzzled, I turned and looked, and I realised, my dad had white hair now.

I had not seen him for years. He was old now and had white hair. I could barely recognize him.