Regrets of the Dying
Sometimes I think that I might be one of the few people who will be on my deathbed, regretting not working harder.<p>When I look back on my life, it's mostly been unfinished projects, or good ideas that didn't get far.<p>I've always been told how much <i>potential</i> I have, and I even feel this in myself. But so far, there's not a lot to show for it. Sometimes I've spent years not doing much of anything except looking at sunsets, walking in parks, reading books, and being creative, and all the things that are supposed to make life wonderful. These idle years weren't all a bowl of cherries (mostly it was due to depression) but it still wasn't so different from the slow sort of lifestyle exalted above. And I still find it lacking.<p>We only have a limited time here, and in our age, individuals have extraordinary leverage. Isn't that also a reason to try as hard as we can to make some kind of dent in the universe? If I forgo a few sunsets, but make a thousand people's lives better, did I really do it wrong?<p>When it comes to regrets, the literary image that stays with me comes from Charles Dickens' <i>A Christmas Carol</i>. This part is usually omitted from popularizations and films. Marley's ghost has delivered the warning about the three spirits, but also shows him a vision of spirits wandering the earth:<p><i>The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went.  Every one of them wore chains like Marley's Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) were linked together; none were free.  Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives.  He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a door-step.  The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever.</i>