I know most New Year’s articles often start with a note of excitement and anticipation about the new possibilities ahead. I would like to start my first article of 2026 on a more sobering note. You might find it depressing, and yet, I want to invite you to consider that perhaps it’s not. Perhaps it’s the key to your liberation this year.
On the first day back to school from the holiday break, I was talking to the father of one of the kids in my son’s Kindergarten class while we were waiting for them to be dismissed for the day. I asked him how the holidays were for him, and as per usual, I got the response I seem to get a lot from people: “Busy”. How often do you find yourself responding to a question on how you are with the that one word, “busy”?
What was even more interesting, was when I asked this father what he was most excited about in the coming year, he said he didn’t know yet, because he hadn’t had a chance to catch up on emails. He shared that once he has caught up with everything he is behind on, he will have a better sense of what he wants to do this year. And this is how most of us run our lives. When… Then…
When I finish all the work, then I will get to relax… When I lose the weight, then I will start that romantic relationship… When I have more time, then I will spend more time with my kids… When I make more money, then I will feel more at peace… You probably get the gist. We play this endless When… Then… game with ourselves, without recognizing the three most important truths that will set you free from this endless hamster wheel:
- You will never get it all done. It’s simply impossible.
- Nothing you create or put out there will ever reach the impossible standards of perfection you imagine in your mind.
- Your time is finite. You will die one day.
Coming to terms with these three truths holds the key to our liberation. When we stop convincing ourselves that it’s possible to get on top of everything, we can finally consciously choose what we want to dive into more fully, and what we simply need to put down, because we will never get around to it. Everything in life is a trade-off. Whenever you commit to something fully, you are by the very definition of that commitment, excluding many other possible options of things you could have engaged in instead. Every time you choose to spend time or energy on something, you are missing out on something else, because your time is finite.
Although this might seem depressing, I want to invite you to consider the liberation in recognizing that you will never get it all done, so you might as well get on with life, and choose what is most important at this point in your life.
Recently, in a conversation with a client, we identified what matters most to the client, and what shocked and surprised her, was how much of her time she was spending on things that didn’t matter at the expense of the things she had listed as mattering the most to her. And so many of us are out of integrity with ourselves around this. How often do you tell yourself that you will get to something that matters to you, once you get through all your emails, or once you get this project done, or as soon as you answer this call, or as soon as you finish picking up the toys in the living room, or once the house is spotless…?
We keep postponing what matters most, because we buy into the false belief that we have infinite time and that we will get to it at some point in the future. If 2025 taught me anything, then it is that we might never get to that point in the future, and that there is no better time to get to the things that truly matter, than right now in THIS moment.
Or you might otherwise find yourself regretting so many missed moments. No-one on their deathbed reflects with joy and appreciation about getting through all the emails in their inbox, or on having a perfectly immaculately clean house all the time, or even on making more money than everyone else…
According to Bronnie Ware, author of The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, the number one regret of the dying is that they didn’t do what mattered most to them. They didn’t follow their heart’s calling and live according to their own values. Instead, they spent their precious time trying to please others, win other people’s approval, or “do the right thing” (as if there is a “right” thing to do).
And the second highest regret of the dying? Working too much and not enjoying life more. Now, I’m not dismissing the value of work. There is tremendous value in work – especially meaningful work that feels purposeful and has you feel like you are making a meaningful contribution to others and to the world. And, work is not all there is.
This is where balance truly matters. We need to balance work with other important things in life, like taking care of our bodies and our health, nurturing important relationships and friendships, being out in nature, participating in hobbies and things we love, and even idle time where we do nothing… It’s often in those moments of doing nothing, and of simply being in the moment, that we experience the most joy and pleasure in life… And yet, if we are working all the time, we don’t leave much room for life to surprise us in the most unexpected ways.
If you are wondering about the other regrets of the dying, and don’t want to read the entire book, Bronnie Ware shares them on her website. The top five regrets were summarised in a blog post long before she shared them in a book about her life.
I imagine that you may perhaps have come across this famous line by Mary Oliver: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” And I wonder if you have ever read the full poem?
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean —
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down —
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention,
how to fall down into the grass,
how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed,
how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
– Mary Oliver
The most famous lines of this poem are the last two. They’re taped to mirrors and pinned to cork boards and framed in embroidery and on and on — and sure enough, they’re lines worth remembering. But the heart of the poem is captured a couple of lines earlier: “Tell me, what else should I have done?” What else, that is, besides “falling down in the grass, being idle and blessed, strolling through the fields all day.”
At its heart, this poem is a little revolution, a provocative question mark beside the conventional answers to the query of what makes a day well-lived. Oliver’s potentially life-changing proposition is that we very well may need to rethink what a “productive day” looks like. It may look a lot less like a day tied to screens and email, and housework and errands, and getting things done, and a lot more like the simple, astonishing affair of getting to know a grasshopper.
References:
Ware, B. (2012). The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing. Hay House.
Ware, B. (2007). Regrets of the Dying. Available online at: https://bronnieware.com/blog/regrets-of-the-dying/