Regrets of the Dying & How to Live Without Regrets

The regrets of the dying points out the important and meaningful things of life. But we need to move one step further to know how to live positively without regrets. We take the teaching of the Bible as a guide and combine them with the regrets of the dying to give us the way to live well and die well without regrets. The tagline for living is "Live out your unique self in peace with God, yourself and others."

An ancient Chinese saying, 曾子言曰：‘鸟之将死，其鸣也哀；人之将死，其言也善。’, tells us that the departing words of the dying are true and good for us.  http://www.inspirationandchai.com/Regrets-of-the-Dying.html gives the top five regrets of the dying. http://tonycampolo.org/if-i-had-to-live-it-over-again/ gives us the top 3 things they could have done if they are to start over again.  I did some reflections and consolidated them into 5 keys. I also looked up the Bible to get some further advice for living a good and happy life (5 Keys for A Happy & Good Life).  Then, we live through life through several stages that are well captured in the famous Psalm 23 that we read often in funeral and wake services. But we should read the Psalm 23 when we are young. It will be a regret for others to read to us when we laid death in the coffin. The Meaning and Cycle of Life from Psalm 23.

Here is condensed mind-map on how to live without regrets:

The 5 Nuggets for Living Well:

1. Find Your Calling

2. Live Out your Calling

3. Be Balanced in Spending your Time

4. Be & Seek Peace with Yourself & Others

5. Do Good & Turn Away from Evil in Speech & Deeds.

The Tagline for Life:

If you like the advices above compressed into a tagline, then try one of the following:

• Live out your unique self in peace with God, yourself and others. or
• Find your calling and live out your calling rightly and be in peace with God and others.

Lim Liat(c) 17 Dec 2013

West Moving East - Chinese Mindset in Gladwell's David & Goliath

The Wharton's interview of Malcolm Gladwell about his book "David and Goliath: : Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants" have many so new ideas that are actually very familiar to the Chinese. In fact, such ideas are just Ancient Chinese Wisdom of thousands year old.

I was giving a talk on 'taking a seat in the cockpit' (27 Nov 13) for HR managers to shift into Strategic Human Capital Management and spoke on the story of David vs Goliath. Specifically, I mentioned that the West thinking is about getting more strength to win, but the Chinese thinking is about how the so-called weak, the underdog can beat the giant. That was how the start-up dethroned the existing leaders.

Today I got the email about this interview with Malcolm Gladwell.

The interview can be found in http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/david-goliath-malcolm-gladwell-advantages-.

Here is the mindmap that summarized the key thoughts and the similarity to ancient Chinese Wisdom.

Sun Zi's arts of war, see Sun Zi Art of War-6: Leadership Skills and Creating HPO | BvOtech, clearly pointed out that winning a war does not just rest on the size of the troops. He went deeper to give the strategies for how to win: Alignment, Foreseeing Enemy’s actions or reactions , Getting Commitment of Staff, Detailed & Careful Planning with Agility and Humility (Never Under-estimate the Enemy). More wisdom can be found in Sun Zi Art of War (Sun Tzu) in One Minute.

A summary of Chinese Mindset can be found in The Essence of Sinology or Chinese Mindset – The Values & Methods for 21st Century.

A summary of East-West Mindset differences can be found in East West Fusion Mindset as a Key and as Simple as ABC.

More comparison between East and West management and Chinese Management Style can be found in Sinology & Chinese Management. 

To learn more of the Chinese mindsets, see Ancient Chinese Wisdom and 

Chinese Words Make You Smarter.

Lim Liat (c) 6 Dec 2013