Regrets of the Dying • Hacker News Board

Re: Regrets of the Dying

#91

Post by flostre » Tue, Aug 31, 2010, 1:20 PM UTC

abalashov wrote: post #48

I guess it remains to be seen conclusively when I fall terminally ill or get close to death of old age, but in my mind, it is not possible to have a life without some kind of theoretical regrets. Every choice you make to spend every moment a certain way is necessarily mutually exclusive with spending it any other way, and there are only so many moments and so many things one can realistically do. I'm quite positively…

There is a difference between not having done something and regretting not having done something.

Re: Regrets of the Dying

#92

Post by barrkel » Tue, Aug 31, 2010, 5:28 PM UTC

crpatino wrote: post #87

barrkel wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the implied converse of this quote (and its more usual version, applying to work) less than convincing. I've had more than my fill with my parents, thanks; I don't wish they had spent less time working and more time with me. I think there's a selfishness in that, a narcissistic desire to own more of the lives of your children, who, ultimately, are going to break free of you, and live their own lives.

I am sorry for being harsh... but I think is the present neglected version of yourself that does not want to hang around with your parents. And yes, it would be foolish from them to expect, having not devoted enough time to your infant/child version, to try to compensate by devoting unwanted attention to your adult self. However, it has been proven once and again. Children were not meant to be put in daycare. They we…

FWIW, my parents were an actor / community theatre director and author / scriptwriter respectively. The nature of those kinds of work means that they were almost always at home.

Re: Regrets of the Dying

#93

Post by mikhailfranco » Tue, Sep 28, 2010, 1:14 PM UTC

neilk wrote: post #85

SiVal wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well said, neilk. I always have mixed feelings when reading about the wisdom of people who are dying. I don't doubt that they feel the way they say they feel at that point, but are their judgments relevant to how they WOULD HAVE felt for years, not weeks, back when they still had years to live? On their deathbeds, when they value family so much more than career, they wish they'd spent more time on the former, less on…

Well, I wasn't talking about a career. I was talking about working harder, and having achievements you could be proud of. That's not the same thing. I think it's been established beyond doubt that a successful career doesn't make you happy. Plenty of researchers have looked into the correlation of income to happiness, and above the poverty line it's pretty flat.

Reminds me of the BBC Radio 4 'Desert Island Discs' interview with Sir Tom Blundell. It was several years ago, and I don't have a transcript, so this is a vaguely remembered paraphrase ...

He was researching protein structure in an X-ray crystallography lab and was working long evenings and nights. Eventually his wife gave him the ultimatum to make a choice between his work and her. He chose work and got a divorce. He said he was incredibly relieved to be free of the guilt he felt neglecting her while he worked at the lab, and threw himself into the research with a new-found energy and determination. Shortly afterwards he he discovered the structure of insulin.

There are billions of mediocre marriages in the world, but structure of insulin is only discovered once.

In retrospect, he sounded like he thought he made the right decision to spend less time with his family.