Can We Avoid Regret On Our Deathbed?
This question addresses how one defines a meaningful life and what we define as regret.
The questions below are listed for Core Team members at Coworking locations who participated in a Conversation Matters discussion about the topic. Consider inviting a friend to coffee or lunch and see how far the conversation can go.
Don’t feel pressured to force the conversation further than your friend is open. Simply ask questions and listen well. Before you meet your friend for the conversation, pray for your friend and your time together: 1) pray that your friend is open to the conversation, 2) pray that you would grow to love your friend more, and 3) pray that you are used by God to share His undeserved love in compelling ways with your friend.
If you or your friend did not participate in a Conversation Matters you can still use the questions below, but consider a different starting point. For instance, you could begin with “I'm connected with an organization that creates discussion forums in Coworking locations and last month's topic was… [see the question above].” Then you could ask, “what do you think about that question?” Consider progressing the conversation with more questions listed below.
Questions:
What did you think about the discussion about regret and living a meaningful life?
Note: Consider whether your friend shared anything during the discussion that you could ask a specific followup question?
Note: If your friend did not share anything, then you can ask, “I didn’t hear you comment in the discussion. Did anyone share a perspective that was similar to yours?”
Did you feel like anything was shared by others that made you consider a new perspective on regret or living a meaningful life?
Note: Consider some the aspects mentioned: spending more time with loved ones, not sweating the small stuff, distinguishing between regret and mistakes/failures, and considering a bigger purpose to our life.
What are some major aspects of distinguishing a life lived well or one that’s full of regret?
One of the ideas from the discussion was that some regret comes from comparison, allowing our culture to completely define what a good or successful life is. Where do you disagree with our culture’s definition of "the good/successful life”?
Note: Consider aspects like money, status, achievement, etc…
Another idea from the discussion was that our concept of purpose influences what we believe is a meaningful life. So, what influences your concept of your purpose in life?
Note: Consider some of the responses from the discussion: family, religious background, culture, experience, reason, science.
Gospel -
One of the most compelling aspects of Christianity, from my perspective, is that it says we were made for the purpose of knowing and loving God, which results in loving others and the world He made. The problem is we don’t naturally love God, or others… because we love ourselves more than anything. Now, living selfishly and rebelliously not only goes against our purpose, but it damages the good things God intended for us to enjoy. The result is that we further isolate ourselves from others and the God of the universe as we pursue life on our own terms.
Illustration - It’s as if the designer of a sports car wants to show us how to use what he has made to it’s fullest potential and our enjoyment, but we dismiss him while we drive it into a lake thinking we can make it float. We cause a lot of destruction, pain, and danger to our lives. This also means we have a hefty debt we owe to the designer.
I have gone against my purpose in loving God and others a lot. That’s where a lot of my regrets come from. The main message of Christianity is that God loves us despite our failure to live out our purpose and the destruction we’ve caused to His good creation. Christianity says that “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son (Jesus) that whoever believes in him would not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son condemn the world, but that the world would be saved through him (Jn. 3:16-17).
So, from the Christianity perspective, we are made for love and when we fail to do so, God’s love is the solution. God’s love is demonstrated in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
That’s really different than any other world view on purpose and God. Have you heard that aspect of Christianity?
Quotes
“In the same way, if people say that their lives feel meaningless, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t have good jobs, family and friends, and the means to live a materially comfortable way. It means that they are not sure what all the activity is being done for. Put another way, they are not sure that all their making and getting actually matters, makes a difference, or accomplishes anything beyond itself. So to have meaning in life is to have both an overall purpose for living and the assurance that you are making a difference by serving some good beyond yourself.” Tim Keller, Making Sense of God, ch. 3.
“For when we ask whether somebody is a good person, we are not asking what he believes or hopes for, but what he loves.” (Enchiridion, chapters 31, 117. See Augustine, The Augustine Catechism: The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love, trans. Bruce Harbert (Hyde Park, NY: New City, 1999), p. 130.)
The late Josiah Royce, a Harvard Philosopher believed that finding meaning in life could be done only if we rejected individualism. “The individualist puts self-interest first, seeing his own pain, pleasure, and existence as his greatest concern.” Modern individualists see loyalty and self-sacrifice as an alarming mistake, leaving oneself open to exploitation and tyranny. To them “nothing could matter more than self-interest, and because when you die you are gone, self-sacrifice makes no sense.”37 Now, tyranny is certainly a great evil but individualism, according to Royce, was the wrong way to overcome it. If every individual seeks his or her own meaning, we will have fewer shared values and meanings, which will erode social solidarity and public institutions. All this will lead to intractable polarization and fragmentation. And ironically, Royce argued, individualism undermines individual happiness. We need “devotion to something more than ourselves for our lives to be endurable. Without it, we have only our desires to guide us, and they are fleeting, capricious, and insatiable.” Excerpt From: Timothy Keller. “Making Sense of God.” Ch. 3
"Christians believe that there is a God, who made us in love to know him, but that as a human race we turned away and were lost to him. However, he has promised to bring us back to himself. God sent his Son into the world to break the power of sin and death, at infinite cost to himself, by going to the cross. Christian teaching is that Jesus rose from the dead and passed through the heavens and now is ruling history and preparing a future new heaven and a new earth, without death and suffering, in which we will live with him forever. And then all the deepest longings of our hearts will find their fulfillment. It is fair to say that if you are a Christian with those beliefs—about who you are to God and what is in store for you—but you are not experiencing peace and meaning, then it is because you are not thinking enough. There is a kind of shallow, temporary peace that modern people can get from not thinking too much about their situation, but Christianity can give a deep peace and meaning that come from making yourself as aware and as mindful of your beliefs as possible.” Excerpt From: Timothy Keller. Making Sense of God, Ch. 3