Getting Off the Work Treadmill

I was listening to Terri Savelle Foy's book, 5 Things Successful People Do Before 8 A.M., when she mentioned a book by Bronnie Ware called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.

Bronnie spent years caring for people during the final weeks of their lives, and she began to notice similarities in the regrets they shared with her.

These were the five that surfaced again and again:

1. “I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

2. “I wish I hadn't worked so hard.”

3. “I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.”

4. “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.”

5. “I wish that I had let myself be happier.”

But #2 really impacted me.

Bronnie wrote that EVERY male patient she nursed expressed this regret.

“All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.” Bronnie Ware

Think about that for a minute.

We can spend years running faster and faster, believing we're getting somewhere only to discover that we've been running on a treadmill.

Maybe the goal shouldn't be to figure out how to run faster, but when it's time to get off the treadmill.