Steps against the regret of omission.
I wanted to make my time spent on the internet useful. With many mediums across the internet, Stumble Upon will be a series of content picks that made me think/rethink. For this first post, I wanted to share a podcast episode of FOMO Sapiens podcast called “Die With Nothing Left on Your To-Do List”.
“Actions, or errors of commission, generate more regret in the short term; but inactions, or errors of omission, produce more regret in the long run.”
Thomas Giloviqh and Victoria Husted Medvec — The Experience of Regret: What, When, and Why
The #1 regret people have in life is the regret of omission – regret of not living your ideal self. Ben Nemtin, the guest on the show, believe that this is because 1) people don’t have accountability on your own goals and 2) lack of Inspiration. We often do have accountability that are entrusted upon us from our family, society, and work. These entrusted expectations are there before we were even able to ask ourselves what we want in life. So we ended up prioritising them first. On 2), even when we know what we want in life, we might not be inspired to do them. Why? because our false believe that inspiration needs to start with an emotion that trigger an action and we kept waiting. That’s a limiting believe. Progress begets progress. Without action, we won’t be inspired and we’ll be waiting for a train that is never going to come.
Ben Nemtin believe his life work is to reduce the percentage of people on their death bed that wouldn’t have the regret of omission. So he created a bucket listand show people that he can achieve it. What’s his recommendation ? Have a list, share it – create accountability, then take one step closer to the list take it often. This reminds me of a quote from Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Once you crossed a few from your own list, the next item that pop up might be to help other cross some off their list too. I believe that’s what Coelho was referring to.
“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist.
So .. share your bucket list. The universe will conspire in helping you achieve them.
