I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends
This week we are continuing with our series which is inspired by the book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing. This book by Bronnie Ware, the palliative care nurse who took care of patients in their last three to twelve weeks of life, is about the stories and confessions from people at the end of their life and talks about the regrets people had for how they wished they had made different choices in life.
One of the top regrets of the dying, Ware found, was not making the time for important friendships. Many found that in the busyness of life, they tended to let go of relationships until they fell out of touch with once-good-friends.
She writes, "Often they would not truly realize the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying."
In these days of social media and instant messaging, getting in touch with long lost friends, relatives, romances and colleagues is easier than ever. Rekindling an old relationship is within reach for most of us and thanks to Google and LinkedIn, people are not all that hard to track down.
I believe a word of caution here may be in order.
Before we begin to invest in relationships that have dwindled or those that we may have outgrown, let us make sure that we are not doing this at the expense of present relationships that we do not have time for.
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