<story><title>Regrets of the Dying (2010)</title><url>https://bronnieware.com/blog/regrets-of-the-dying/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>CaptArmchair</author><text>If only it were that easy.&lt;p&gt;Life goals and dreams are hard because of their innate complexity to achieve them. It&amp;#x27;s easy to state &amp;quot;I want to start a family&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;I want to become a business owner&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;I want to climb Everest&amp;quot;. It&amp;#x27;s the execution which is hard because that relies on so many variables most of which you don&amp;#x27;t really control.&lt;p&gt;Social background, economic background, your health, your personality, your skills and abilities, your awareness of opportunities or lack thereof, ingrained beliefs and biases, education level, culture, current events, family dynamics, upbringing,...&lt;p&gt;The notion that you&amp;#x27;re in control of what happens in your life is a convenient belief, not a hard fact. It&amp;#x27;s only when that belief is shattered by hard reality that you start to understand that life doesn&amp;#x27;t necessarily follow the script you had in mind when you&amp;#x27;re young.&lt;p&gt;The kicker then is understanding that happiness isn&amp;#x27;t to be found only when you reach the end of the rainbow, when you finally achieve the dream. It&amp;#x27;s there along the road, between the rubble and troubles that life throws at you. It&amp;#x27;s found in what you make out of each day you&amp;#x27;re given in good health.</text></item><item><author>WheelsAtLarge</author><text>People should note that having dreams without figuring out how to get them accomplished is a sure way to have regrets. We are told that we should chase our dreams with the idea that if we wish hard enough they will come true - popular entertainment re-enforces it. I think that&amp;#x27;s why there are so many people that buy lottery tickets hoping their dreams will come true once they have the instant money of a win. But the reality is that only a few people will win the lottery. It&amp;#x27;s by design. The lottery is built with the idea that only a tiny percent will ever get the big money. This seems like it&amp;#x27;s obvious but a large number of people just believe that dreams come true by luck. So keep in mind that most dreams are achievable you just have to work towards them by setting up a life plan.&lt;p&gt;-Define dream&lt;p&gt;-Set up a plan to the goal&amp;#x2F;dream&lt;p&gt;-execute plan until achieved - but review on a set time table to make sure you are heading in the right direction.&lt;p&gt;Start, life really is short.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>WastingMyTime89</author><text>You still have some amount of control.&lt;p&gt;As a 30-something, it has recently become apparent to me that it is very easy to live a life you don&amp;#x27;t really care about. You start a job because it&amp;#x27;s the thing people expect you to do with your degree, chase some promotions because it feels nice to improve your status and win more money and without really paying attention you end up doing a job you rescent to keep living a life you dislike.</text></comment>
<story><title>Regrets of the Dying (2010)</title><url>https://bronnieware.com/blog/regrets-of-the-dying/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>CaptArmchair</author><text>If only it were that easy.&lt;p&gt;Life goals and dreams are hard because of their innate complexity to achieve them. It&amp;#x27;s easy to state &amp;quot;I want to start a family&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;I want to become a business owner&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;I want to climb Everest&amp;quot;. It&amp;#x27;s the execution which is hard because that relies on so many variables most of which you don&amp;#x27;t really control.&lt;p&gt;Social background, economic background, your health, your personality, your skills and abilities, your awareness of opportunities or lack thereof, ingrained beliefs and biases, education level, culture, current events, family dynamics, upbringing,...&lt;p&gt;The notion that you&amp;#x27;re in control of what happens in your life is a convenient belief, not a hard fact. It&amp;#x27;s only when that belief is shattered by hard reality that you start to understand that life doesn&amp;#x27;t necessarily follow the script you had in mind when you&amp;#x27;re young.&lt;p&gt;The kicker then is understanding that happiness isn&amp;#x27;t to be found only when you reach the end of the rainbow, when you finally achieve the dream. It&amp;#x27;s there along the road, between the rubble and troubles that life throws at you. It&amp;#x27;s found in what you make out of each day you&amp;#x27;re given in good health.</text></item><item><author>WheelsAtLarge</author><text>People should note that having dreams without figuring out how to get them accomplished is a sure way to have regrets. We are told that we should chase our dreams with the idea that if we wish hard enough they will come true - popular entertainment re-enforces it. I think that&amp;#x27;s why there are so many people that buy lottery tickets hoping their dreams will come true once they have the instant money of a win. But the reality is that only a few people will win the lottery. It&amp;#x27;s by design. The lottery is built with the idea that only a tiny percent will ever get the big money. This seems like it&amp;#x27;s obvious but a large number of people just believe that dreams come true by luck. So keep in mind that most dreams are achievable you just have to work towards them by setting up a life plan.&lt;p&gt;-Define dream&lt;p&gt;-Set up a plan to the goal&amp;#x2F;dream&lt;p&gt;-execute plan until achieved - but review on a set time table to make sure you are heading in the right direction.&lt;p&gt;Start, life really is short.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tcgv</author><text>While I agree that there are a lot of factors we don&amp;#x27;t control, we can put that into perspective for evaluating how feasible a &amp;quot;life goal&amp;quot; is.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s a culture that pushes us to &amp;quot;dream big&amp;quot; (e.g. build a unicorn startup, become a billionaire). That&amp;#x27;s usually awfully ambitious, and as feasible as winning the lottery for most of us.&lt;p&gt;We should be pragmatic about our life goals. They should be ambitious, but achieavable.&lt;p&gt;Even if we don&amp;#x27;t control a lot of factors in our lives we at least have the power to influence them, most of the time it comes in the form of &amp;quot;trade-offs&amp;quot;. So you&amp;#x27;ve got to be prepared to make some sacrifices in the present for making progress towards a future goal.&lt;p&gt;I also acknowledge that some of us have a head start due to our social&amp;#x2F;economical background, and we should be grateful for that.</text></comment>