THE ELDER’S DEATHBED

Reading Shoshana Ungerleider's piece in a recent CNBC post, "Top 5 regrets people have on their deathbeds: What they can teach us about living healthy, fulfilled lives, from an internal medicine doctor," allowed me to contrast elder to older more competently.

Regret is a feeling of tension about a past choice, often accompanied by negative emotions such as remorse, sorrow, and helplessness. Regret commonly comes with an awareness of responsibility for wrongdoing or not doing so, causing guilt and shame.

I fully agree with Shoshana's observations about these five regrets and their impact. She reports, the top five regrets people have on their deathbeds are:

1.    I didn't spend enough time with the people I love.

2.    I worked too much and missed out on life.

3.    I let fear control my decisions and didn't take risks.

4.    I wish I'd been braver in the face of uncertainty or opportunity.

5.    I focused too much on the future and lost touch with the present. 

Elders of course grapple with these same regrets. These regrets are universal for late aging. You get old, you will have these regrets. But elders handle them differently.