Regrets, reversed

A palliative care nurse called Bronnie Ware spent years sitting with people in their last weeks, and wrote down what they said they regretted. The same five things came up, over and over. I worked too much. I lost touch with my friends. I never said what I thought. I did not let myself be happy. I lived the life other people expected.

Paul Graham turned the list inside out and keeps it at the top of his to-do list, above everything else.

Read it as a diagnosis from the people with the best view. Not one item on it costs money. The dying were not short of money. They were short of Tuesdays, and they had spent them on the wrong things, one reasonable compromise at a time.