How do you avoid a wasted life?

Visiting my father this weekend brought the topic up. He is, unfortunately, quite sick to the point of spending most of the time just resting, in pain, looking forward to a simple meal at the seniors residence. That's it.

He rather surprised me when he emphatically told me how guilty he was of not spending more time with family, and instead wasting time doing a job he wasn't suited for.

A) He took care of the needs of our family, quite well. That counts.
B) He's always been quite clear in choosing what he wanted to do, and did it.
C) It probably is not fair to yourself to question you life, at a time like this.

I can see the fact that we choose things that we wish we did different when we get to the consequences later. Hind sight is 20/20. We all want our cake and to eat it too. Perhaps we generally favor the short term though, and down play the cost for later, since consequences are a long time in the future?

I guess I'm wondering why we don't take the bigger picture more seriously. You are going to have to pay: at some point. Do you really want to defer that to the end of your life? Under the best circumstances, with failing health everything is very stress full, confusing and slightly addled. It really is not the time to decide pay the price of regretful decisions.

So decide everyday, what matters, and choose that, whatever the cost. Don't play games with yourself, and others. If you are not sure what it is you might regret then, you really should work on that, or it's gonna get messy. To achieve peace, you will have to own and accept your choices, including the ones you avoided.

That will certainly add to life and liveliness now and later, you will become more consistent as a person, and not have to live with regret and guilt.