Five Regrets of the Dying

I would like to share this article written by Bronnie Ware which I've read in the Star yesterday.

Patients who had gone home to die, when questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would have done differently, the most common five are:

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.                                                                                               
     Many dreams have gone unfulfilled and not honoured even half of their dreams and knew that it was
     due to choices they had made, or not made.

2. I wish I didn't work so hard.
    Most are men who regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.
     They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship.

3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
  Most are women who 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.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
    Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. They were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
     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 themselves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.

It had me thinking.........

Old versus New

It is that time of the year again. Weddings! Weddings! Everywhere also weddings! It is such a joyous occasion. Come this December, I will be attending my niece's engagement ceremony and then most probably this time again next year will be the wedding day.


Try rummaging through your old wedding photos. Have you noticed that most of the time you didn't even smile? or maybe it is only me? then compare them to the newer photos of maybe your daughter's or son's wedding ? or maybe of your younger siblings? Nowadays, the package comes with storybook, photos taken at various sites of beautiful gardens, buildings and so on. The newly -weds in their wedding gear, all smiling with different poses.

 The bride-to-be even get to plan her own wedding from the colour theme to the "pelamin" and even right up to the gifts (hantaran) she wants. The bliss of it all!!

The thing I wanted to stress here is that during my wedding time, my late grandmother gave me this piece of advice - don't smile, you can smile a little bit but not too much, you mustn't show that you are happy, in fact too happy or else people particularly the elders would think that you are very, very eager to get married. In other words, they would say that "gatal sangat nak berlaki" (sorry, can't find the right words in english) So there I was, trying so hard not to smile a lot, just a little bit here and there! curi-curi gitu... I only got to know of my wedding dress on the day of the wedding itself!

To all those newly-weds out there, all the best and happiness always!