What Will You Regret When You Are 80?

I guess everyone knows that Oprah has her OWN network. Which I have somehow missed till now. I am not a religious Oprah follower but strangely when I do catch a show, or the magazine or something Oprah-esque, it ends up being an AHA moment for me. I am dealing with some thing or the other and voila, the answer comes to me right there. Love it when that happens!

So I was watching the OWN network for the first time this week and I caught her show, “Lifeclass” where Oprah shares her life’s lessons with all of us. And one of the lessons really struck me. She was talking about “regret minimization” which she learnt from Jeff Bezos (yes, that Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com fame) years ago.

Jeff told her that he was having trouble deciding if he should take the leap and create his own company. He had a great job and though he believed in his idea he did not know if he should take the plunge. So he asked himself, “When I am 80 what will I regret not having done?” and he felt strongly that more than anything else he would regret not having tried and so he quit his job and started Amazon.com.

The idea here is to take a long term view of your life rather than the short term (what's in it for me now, today view). Make decisions and live your life to minimize your regrets when you are 80. And so I am sitting there watching Oprah replay this clip, this discussion with Jeff, and it hits me that there is one thing that I will definitely regret when I am 80.

And that is, that I did not take better care of my health. Blame it on the arrogance of youth. You think you will never get old, never get sick, you will always look and feel great. I have to say that I never thought this day would come. My body is not as strong as it used to be. I feel fatigued after a few hours of work. Aches and pains are a daily constant of my life. And at this rate, if I don’t do anything about it I may not make it to 80 to worry about what regrets I may or may not have about my life.

Yes, I know it is not earth shattering and, no, it’s not going to save the world but for me it is a very personal acknowledgement of both the frailty and strength of human life. When you are young and healthy and strong, use your time wisely. Make it count because one day you will not have the strength to do the things you need to do let alone the things you dreamt of doing. If I could turn back the clock I would take better care of my health so that today I could have the health and the energy to live fully.