Avoiding the Top 5 Deathbed Regrets

Bronnie Ware, a palliative care nurse recently wrote an article encompassing her experiences of numerous conversations with those on their deathbed and their regrets.  It occurred to us that many of those regrets can be relieved or lessened by a lifestyle that we advocate here at TDV.

Let’s take a look at each:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

She goes on to say, “it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honored 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 honor at least some of your dreams along the way.”

This is probably the #1 regret of TDV readers as well. We can’t count the amount of emails we get where people tell us they have always wanted to live in another country or culture but they never do it… for a variety of reasons.  But, the reasons are mostly unimportant in the grand scheme of things.  They usually pertain to fear. But it is important to recognize that a fear of foreign cultures is instilled in most of us through propaganda.  The nightly news in most western countries tries to make the world look as scary as possible.  Take for example this recent headline, “Mexican Swine Flu Outbreak Kills 29, Infects Nearly 1,500”.  Wow, you might think!  We better cancel that trip to Mexico!  But the total amount of people killed in the US every year from “regular” flu-associated deaths ranged from a low of about 3,000 to a high of about 49,000 people according to the CDC.  Where is the “US Flu Outbreak Kills 10,000+, Infects Millions” headline?

2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.

This regret is so prevalent in the west because western governments have made a point of working their tax slaves to death.  First, they take a massive amount of your income.  Ask yourself, if you had to pay no tax would you have the ability to spend more time with your family or doing non-work related activities?  The obvious answer is yes.  Then, through the scourge of central banking, they slowly inflate away (though sometimes very quickly) most people’s savings and engender an economy where those who own the assets usually gain on those who work for wages, making the tax hamsters run faster.  Pre-1970s abandonment of the gold standard and the resulting stagflation, a single income could support a family, now due to radical feminist influence and rampant inflation in taxation and housing, two parents are required to work and children are shuffled off to daycares and government indoctrination camps at a young age to endure for 20+ years of “education”.  And this is also not to mention the cubicle lifestyle so popular in the west and the long soul-draining commutes that are also common.

The best way to not work so hard and to have the ability to spend more time with your loved ones is to live outside of this system.  In our letter we often talk about ways to build your business outside the western world where the opportunities are usually far greater, regulation is non-existent and taxes are much lower and sometimes zero.  In past issues of TDV we’ve shown you how to become a hotelier in Mexico without having to put any money down and in last month’s issue of TDV we showed you how you could become a private banker in Cambodia and garner interest income from 36% to 120% per annum.

When you don’t have the massive crush of taxes and regulation it is amazing how quickly you can build wealth.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

Bronnie Ware states, “…when you change the way you are by speaking honestly, 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.”

We couldn’t agree more.  You can call TDV what you want, but you can’t accuse us of not expressing our opinions now matter how unpopular they are with the masses.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

This is a common refrain we hear from those who are tentative about expatriation.  However, as someone who has been a global citizen for nearly 10 years, I can offer some interesting perspective on this issue.

Your circle of “friends” can and should be constantly evolving. For example, I deleted most of my “friends” from Facebook when they announced their participation in various forms of statism such as voting or wearing their countries’ flag. I replaced many of my old friends whose beliefs had grown out of touch with my own. I now had a whole world of new friends who challenge me in a positive way. My new circle of friends adds value to my life rather than being a constant drain on my emotions.

Thanks to the internet, your friends are as close as you want them to be no matter where you are.  This point was driven home just a little while ago.  I had been away from one of my good Canadian friends for more than a year but we had talked every few days via Skype and email.  By happenstance, I had a four hour stopover in his city while on my way to Asia.  Looking at my watch, and seeing that I had just enough, time I decided to run to one of my favorite sushi restaurants… and since I was there for such a short period I didn’t even bother calling him.  As chance would have it, as I walked to the restaurant I saw him.  We both said hi nonchalantly and kept walking for a few seconds before we both turned around and realized that we hadn’t actually physically seen each other in more than a year.  That’s how close we felt just via the internet.

Sometimes you can live in the same town as your friends and never see them… and sometimes you can be halfway around the world and see them via the internet every day.  Location is not as important as it used to be.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

Bronnie states, “Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content. When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.”

Nothing can get you into a more open, relaxed and outgoing mode than living in a foreign culture.  By living in one culture your whole life you get bogged down by the familiarity of it all.  And you tend to get very myopic in how you view everything.  Witness any expat gathering almost anywhere in the world and watch them laugh, drink and share in all the enjoyments of making countless mistakes in a different culture and having stories that will amaze your friends, wherever they are.

CONCLUSION

I once was told by an emergency room nurse that you can tell how someone lived by how they die.  She told me that those who did not live out their dreams would cry in agony at their lost chance.  Those who lived out their dreams passed on in deep peace.

No matter what your station in life, try to avoid these regrets.  Unless the Buddhists are correct, we only live once.  Don’t waste your chance.

If you want to join the ever growing numbers of ex-pats who are discovering a world of opportunnity and a better quality of life abroad, please subscribe to The Dollar Vigilante. Each month we report from abroad on how you can build a freer life for yourself – in February’s report we have a feature on living in Guatemala

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