Five Regrets of the ‘Almost Dead’
Your very genes will live indefinitely as long as they have found someone new to host them. Your atoms remain intact and scatter to become other things, just as they pre-existed you and became you.

The almost dead have their fate sealed. They’ve been told they are going to die — and crucially, they believe it.
That last part might surprise you. If you are sick and you believe you’ll die then you will.
I learned this lesson from a 1990s audiotape from Tony Robbins. At the time Tony’s father-in-law Cecil was ill. Tony did everything he could to protect him from the nurses who wanted him to desperately know his fate.
Instead, Tony gave Cecil reasons to live. He set tasks for him such as coming to Tony’s Fiji resort to help with the gardening, and taking care of the grandkids. Whenever there was downtime to think about death, Tony filled the gaps with meaningful tasks. As a result, Tony’s father-in-law lived a lot longer than his doctor-prescribed expiration date.
The lesson is used to demonstrate how our thinking can contribute to fast-tracking our death when we’re almost dead.
Doctor BJ Miller, who is a hospice and palliative medicine physician, has a different take on what death means and it will completely bend, and even break, your current thinking.
Your death is not the end of your body. The chemical bonds that held you together at the molecular level continue to break in the minutes and months after you die. Tissues oxidize and decay, like a banana ripening. The energy that once animated the body doesn’t stop: It transforms. Decay from one angle, growth from another.
Unfettered, the decay process continues until all that was your body becomes something else, living on in others — in the grass and trees that grow from where you might come to rest, and from the critters who eat there.
Your very genes, little packets of stuff, will live indefinitely as long as they found someone new to host them. Even after interment or cremation, your atoms remain intact and scatter to become other things, just as they pre-existed you and became you.
Perhaps to be almost dead isn’t such a scary thing at all.
I’ve got used to spending time with the almost dead. Many of my relatives are elderly and have significant health problems. I’ve lost a few close friends too, to the terrible clutches of cancer. In my final conversations with them before the end, there are a few patterns all tieing back to regrets.
They regret not setting their secrets free.
A close family member died more than ten years ago. I found out recently that he had one huge regret: not setting his secret free.
After returning from war, he got given electroshock therapy and kept it a secret. This is “a psychiatric treatment where seizures in the brain are electrically induced in patients to provide relief from mental disorders.”
This secret explained his placid way of life and his inability to show emotion. I would never have guessed it. He suffered with this secret for years and only released it to his wife during his final 48 hours alive. She, too, kept it secret until days before her death.
To be human is to suffer. Keeping your suffering secret prevents the opportunity of healing to take effect.
A bank account full of money they can’t spend.
The almost dead have money left in their bank account. They can’t take it to the afterlife. They can’t get a refund on the time they gave up to earn the money in the first place.
Death doesn’t issue refunds for time wasted.
Normally what they do is give their money away to family. But trust fund babies are the enemy of the state. Arming a trust fund baby with the weapon of money does more harm than good.
When you don’t have to learn how to make money, invest money and be generous with money, you run the risk of becoming a full-time a-hole on Instagram. Money teaches you how to use your time wisely.
They regret their lack of family time.
Many of us assume our family gets enough time with us. Or that our family will understand if we are “working hard for that dream in the future.”
I haven’t had an encounter with an almost dead person who doesn’t on some level wish they spent more time with their family. A few more holidays. A longer stay over Christmas. A couple more overseas holidays with the grandkids. Thankfully we can learn from the almost dead and not make the same mistake.
Time with family reminds you of where you came from, where you are right now, and where you’re going.
They regret silly little grudges.
One person from my research vividly described how they hadn’t spoken to an entire side of their family. I asked them why. “You know, I can’t remember it’s been so many decades.”
Imagine that. A grudge so silly you can’t even remember it. Forgiveness can crush any grudge. It’s hard to give out, but freeing for all parties involved.
For years I was angry at my brother and expected him to change. I blamed him for every little thing. I never acknowledged anything in his life or gifted him a single thing. Last Christmas I bought him a series of generous gifts.
The day after he sent me a text. He was blown away and speechless. For the first time, I saw another side of him. He had the capacity to be the person I wanted, all I needed to do is forgive, demonstrate the behavior I wanted, and wait for the pleasant surprise.
Lesson: You can spend years waiting for people to change and slapping them around with your expectations. Or you can lead by example and be the change you wish to see. Quit waiting for people to change. The change starts with you.
They regret soul-crushing work.
You know the variety. The meeting that challenges your will to live. The boss that got inspired by the Egyptian slave masters or the unsullied from Game of Thrones. They regret not quitting sooner. They regret not trying different career paths. They regret not feeling what it might be like to own a business. They regret not charging more for their limited time on earth.
One woman got close to death after a battle with cancer. Her workplace was more toxic than the cancer that slowly killed her. She knew it too. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to quit and start again elsewhere before her death.
I’m sure you’ve felt like that before. I know I have. What if we thought about soul-crushing work in the context of being almost dead? How many jobs would you have if you knew you had approximately six months to live?
The regrets of the almost dead point out one thing: act while you have time and haven’t been given a death prognosis. Whatever you fear is silly in comparison to the life of an almost dead person.
There are many people alive who act like dead people. To act alive is to live for today, by disconnecting from minute B.S., in favor of time well spent.