https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/...ime/893367001/
Those were David Cassidy's last words. What a tragedy.
Reminds me of my MIL, who told me just weeks before she died that she felt she had a "wasted life." I think she meant that she didn't take the opportunity to push for a real career. She worked for decades in Macy's as a sales clerk--a young widow raising two young boys, but later she became active in the Retail Worker Department Store Union, and she was perfectly suited for that job. She became a Vice President for the Union when she was 70. She loved that job, but it was short-lived. I think that she felt duped in believing that she had to be a "good mother" by putting her career on the back burner.
I'm not saying that all mothers should have a career--but I feel my MIL would have really made a difference if she achieved her full potential in her work life, and I think she would have loved it.
As for David Cassidy, those words are so poignant, because we all know his missteps in terms of substance abuse. Substance abuse can steal so much from the user's life.
I am not sure what will keep me from uttering those words on my deathbed. Of course I already feel I've wasted a lot of time. But that's expected. As long as my life is in the black in terms of what I've hoped to have done, versus what's in the negative column, I'll be happy.
What about you? What will give you assurance you've spent a life well-lived?
I think about my favorite Shakespeare play, Richard II, a king who just basically frittered away his kingdom, and in a fabulous soliloquy as he sits as a prisoner in Pomfret Castle thinking over his life, he says "I wasted time and now doth time waste me." Such a haunting thought.