At life's crossroads: looking for peace of mind

You’ve lived a long life, you have a few regrets … or not. You had crossroads along the way. Did you take the right direction? Did you make the right decisions? Maybe … or maybe not. Perhaps you are at crossroads now.

An American survey on regrets noted the most cited response was that people wished they had taken steps “to plan and prepare for their senior years” (USA Today July 16, 2014). Responses were: saving more money (45%), taking better care of my health (36%), making better investments (31%), keeping legal documents more organized (22%), and staying closer with family (21%). As people travel on the road of life, there are always crossroads – a stop in the road which gives time for a review of what has happened and what might happen in the future. Some say, “I should have done this or ….,” says Louis Primavera, a psychologist at Touro College in New York.

The survey by the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging, the National Council on Aging, UnitedHealthcare, and USA Today, included responses from 1,000 adults aged 60 years and older, with a comparison group of 1,027 adults aged 18-59 years (United States of Aging 2014).

The “number one thing” that people of all ages are looking for is peace of mind.

Carsten Wrosch, a psychology professor at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, who has been collecting “life regret” data since 2003 has found that life regrets are based around work, education, and relationship issues. “But what’s really surprising is that most regrets were from decades past.”

Regrets can become health problems if people don’t get the opportunity to right a wrong, or make other more productive or “peace of mind” decisions. Wrosch advised people to “let go of regrets and find something in life that is meaningful and can provide purposeful living.”

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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