Self | Health
4 Things People Commonly Regret In Old Age
An examination and reflection on what the research says.
It was a bit depressing.
I was paging through my high school yearbook just yesterday and recognized three people who’d already died.
One died to suicide. Another to liver failure (addiction), another — nobody knows, which probably means it wasn’t pretty.
In recent years, I’ve tried to map my life decisions with the question, “Will I regret this decision 10 or 20 years from now?” When I work backward, it helps reframe my problems.
And so this leads to the question: what do people commonly regret in old age?
The pain point of school or the lack thereof
Emma Freud polled users and said, “There were many more regrets to do with school and college than I would have expected.”
Even those who are successful often regret not having invested in their education.
It’s interesting because one CEO I wrote for never went to college. But within 20 minutes of meeting him, the otherwise humble man mentioned he’d gotten near a perfect SAT score — which I suspect comes from his own insecurity for having not finished…
