Bronnie Ware who is a nurse to the dying in Australia wrote a book about dying that is actually very much for the living.

In The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed By the Dearly Departed, Ware gives us a second chance to avoid the regrets that so often come at the end of life.

They are:

1. I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.  To me, this regret hits home and is a timely reminder to be the person you want to be.
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.  I’m sure you can relate.  Life has a way of interrupting our master plan.  No one ever regrets more time outs spent with family and friends.
3. I wish I had the courage to express my feelings.  There is a nice, pleasant way to say how you feel.  What is left unsaid at the end of life is more painful.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.  Friendship takes work that pays a dividend all during life.  It is not an accident.
5. I wish I had let myself be happier.  People from mid-life on often say that they consider their personal happiness more than when they were younger, a practice that will leave few regrets.

Just writing these five things that I have shared previously makes me hope that I won’t have these regrets someday.  How about you?

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There is appropriate anger, which is good and inappropriate anger, which is self-destructive.

1. Are you sure you are angry with the right person?  Often we take our frustrations out on the wrong people or even people who are close to us who have our best interests at heart.
2. Is it the right place and time?  Tempers tend to flare when we can’t deal with things that irk us.  But just as important as our response is asking ourselves the question “Is this the right place or time to express my anger?”.
3. Is the anger we’re feeling directly related to the issue we are responding to?  You don’t have to think too far back to the last time you witnessed an unfortunate display of anger that started dragging in the past.  Couples do this all the time at the expense of their relationship. 
4. Is my anger intended to vent in a constructive way or retaliate for being hurt?  Inappropriate anger is that which is directed at a person who may have hurt you through something they said.  Only respond if your goal is to express your feelings to the issue at hand.

Believe it or not, two tools that can help are deep breathing as you are getting amped up and postponing your response – even a second or two – to fully hear what is angering you.

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Every son should be a champion of empowering women because their mothers are women who deserve to be treated no less than a man.

Every father should be willing to fight for equal opportunity and advancement because their daughters need a strong advocate.

Every husband who is married to a woman should be anxious to see that their partner is treated with the same respect and gravity as any man.

Every friend who has a dear female friend should advance their cause because that’s what real friends are for.

My sister once told me that equal rights and treatment liberates men not just women.

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A delightful school psychologist from Haddonfield, NJ – Libby Falk once shared with me an effective way to get people to butt out of your business.

On personal matters, people have the right to know only that which you want to tell them.

But some people push boundaries.

They pry.

They cajole. 

Some even bully to get access to information and feelings that we are uncomfortable to share with them.

You make the decision of what you want people to know.

Here is Libby’s advice when faced with intruders who want to get too personal:

• Fog the issue by changing the subject or making the request for information appear to be watered down.
• Use humor.  Humor is our friend once again.  If someone says, as one of my “friends” said to me – “How did YOU become a professor at USC?”, my answer was “They ran out of real professors so they called me”.  I never answered and never had to because the invasion of privacy was not his business.  He was probably jealous.

We give social media a lot of slack these days by revealing more information than our parents ever shared in their day.

There are big debates about government snooping into our cellphone calls.

We are routinely asked to trade some personal information when we sign up for something online that we want.

But in the end, what is ours is ours to share as we wish.

Now you have two more ways to push back those who invade your personal space.

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I love writing and I love texting.

Both.

Texting is just emerging as a powerful way to communicate.

Not just the trivial back and forth stuff we all do.  Texting can enhance relationships.

• Texting “thank you” is powerful.  Try to do it several times a day.
• Texting a short message of remembrance is warm and friendly.  “I’m with you on your job interview”.
• Statements of love.  Love u is good.  Love u because you always have my back is better.  Statement + evidence to back it up.
• Requests.  Can we talk?
• Discovery.  Guess where I am?  Guess what I am doing?
• Apologies.  I’m sorry.  Politicians have made apologies a national joke, but a sincere apology perhaps even with a few words to promise better is.

These six things make us better people.

Why not unlock your cellphone and make texting the powerful tool it is.

And pay attention to what’s around you while texting.  One of my readers wrote to tell me her son was on a school bus that hit and killed a person who was texting.  He’s still not able to fully process what happened.

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That’s what the old saying says, but the old saying is wrong.

Nice will soon be the new self-absorption.

We’re getting tired of things being all about me.

Study after study shows that happiness is derived from giving and not receiving.

Giving your time. 

Focusing your attention. 

Doing kind deeds. 

Ironically, no one is truly happy even if they get precisely what they want because often they don’t even know what they really want.

If I am reading this right – and I believe I am – having the courage to be nice, to be honest, to be authentic, to be compassionate – these are advantages that accomplish two important things.

One, you will be happier being the fine person you are instead of the person who you may not want to be for one reason or the other.

And two, you will be more successful because being focused on the other person’s interest is always the way to personal and career success.

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A USC student whose father was a math professor asked me in the middle of a music industry class, when do you stop chasing your dreams?

It’s complicated.

First, you have to have dreams and even early in life people give up on them as unattainable because of the negative influence of those around them.  And if you manage to hold on to your dreams, then reality often checks in – student loans, marriage, babies.

The answer is:  never stop chasing your dreams.

This doesn’t mean my music student should turn 70 still hoping to be the next hot country artist.

It does mean that we must never give up the things that inspire us the most.  Often, different opportunities occur – things we could not have seen in advance.  So a performing artist may not be in his future, but this young man would be wise to make sure music was somehow in his life.

When do you stop chasing your dreams?

You know.

This is not a decision to outsource to those around you.  It is your decision to make.

Abandon no dream – keep them close by throughout your life at any age.

A life well lived is one in which is driven by our deep dreams and desires and this is a gift not a problem.

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An artist creates a new picture on a canvass or piece of paper.

They do not cover over what they have painted on a previous canvas.

In life, we all too often go through the stressful routine we are up against just to get through the day even if every day gets to be the same.

One way to break that habit is to think of each day as a new canvas.

• Before getting out of bed, think of three things you are grateful for.
• As you fully awake, see in your minds eye a blank canvass on which to create your day.
• Routines are good – nothing wrong with Starbucks in the morning if that’s what you like – but create a new routine to add to your canvass.  Maybe you stop at a different location.  Perhaps you order something different.  Maybe you brew your own.
• Look for every opportunity to do something different even if it is routine.
• And sometime during the day, splash a lot of color on your canvass.  Surprise others.  Surprise yourself.

At the end of the day look back on how you created a day that was different from the others.

When something great happens – you get a promotion, your child is born, etc. – you remember these days because they are not routine.

No one ever sits on their deathbed wishing they had lived each day of their lives the same way.

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The Mayo Clinic Stress-Free Living Program found that 70-90% of program participants say their life is right and only 10-30% think it is wrong.

But they actually live their lives thinking 10-30% is right and 70-90% is wrong – the other way around.

Imagine the sea change that can be brought about if we start to believe what is right about our lives trumps what is wrong.

Everything meaningful starts in our brain.

As long as we have another day to work on that which needs improving and have the ability to be grateful for what we have, positive change occurs.

As the director of the Mayo Stress Free Program says, “even more important than being blessed is to know that you are blessed”.

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The things that bring us the greatest joy are not really secrets.

We all know them.

The secret is to do these things that make happiness possible:

• Acceptance of who we are
• Being loved by ourselves and others
• The warmth of the people around us in our lives
• A feeling of security
• Optimism that realizing our dreams in some way is always possible
• Meaningful work
• Few regrets
• Being in the Now more than wandering into the past or projecting into the future

Life moves by quickly at the speed of email, texting, dealing with the stresses of others and daily distractions.

Work on each one of the above one at a time until you make progress and then move on to the next.

When you’ve completed the list, start at the top all over again.

The quest for happiness takes hard work and focus and is never ending.

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