Life is Short. Seize the Day. No Regrets.

Sneak Peek:

Kristin:    00:00:00    Don't take things for granted. You know, life can change in an instant. Don't wait. Don't put things off any longer. Just do one thing that you can do today towards a better life for yourself.  

Introduction: Welcome to Badass Digital Nomads, where we're pushing the boundaries of remote work and travel, all while staying grounded with a little bit of old school philosophy, self-development, and business advice from our guests. 

Kristin Wilson, Host:    00:00:36    Hey there, Kristin, from Traveling with Kristin here, and welcome to episode one 40 of Badass Digital Nomads, the first of the new year 2022. And before we jump into this episode, I just wanted to give a disclaimer on this one that I will be talking about the passing of one of my first YouTube subscribers from cancer at the end of 2021. So I just wanted to let you know to proceed with caution. I don't want to make anyone sad, but it does have a lesson in it and hopefully some helpful tips for you and insights. I actually recorded this episode weeks ago and I kept postponing it because I wasn't sure if I should publish it, but I do feel that the lesson in it is important. And so I'm going to share it with you definitely a bit out of the ordinary from what we usually talk about on this podcast. But Traveling with Kristin is about traveling the world and life and death is one of the things of life. And so I think it's just important to have this discussion.  

Kristin:    00:02:04    Hi everyone. I wanted to do a kind of year in review and you know, in inspiring podcast for the end of the year, there's really been only one thing on my mind that I, that I wanna talk about. It's very difficult. And, and that is that one of my first YouTube subscribers and the moderator of many, many, many of my YouTube live streams and probably more than a hundred Teklordz has passed away from cancer in this podcast. I just want to acknowledge him. I, because he loved to travel and this man was, he really left the planet too soon before he got to achieve all of his travel goals. And before I found out of his passing, I have been thinking a lot about the concepts of being too old to do something and also seizing the day. And like it's never too late.  

Kristin:    00:03:15    And my thought on, on being too old to do something, I don't think that it's ever too old to start something, but I do think that life is short. And even though it's short, it's long enough for us to do the things that we want to do in the world. If we take action, who you are in this lifetime, your identity, it's already in you. It's a part of your soul when you're born and you have the amount of time on the planet that you need to unfold and your own life and to be who you are and to do what you want to do. And all of us are afraid of that. You know, we spend so much time looking externally for our passions and for answers and for advice when a lot of the times we just need to turn inside and not be afraid to just be ourselves.  

Kristin:    00:04:15    And what I saw in Teklordz, he was one of the first Bitcoin miners on the planet. You know, he had it made, he had a beautiful family. He had, you know, probably all the money in the world. He had complete freedom and he had so many plans and ideas, but if you don't have your health, you don't have anything. And his diagnosis was so fast and his death was so sudden and he just didn't get to do all of the things he wanted to do. Many of you will relate to wanting to escape cold weather, and that certainly was Teklordz. He was French Canadian and he wanted to always escape the winters in Canada to go to warm places. Like, uh, Clearwater, Florida was one of his favorite places. Panama, uh, the Caribbean. He sent me so many pictures of boats that he was looking at in Florida because he wanted to buy a boat and sail around the world. When talking about death.  

Kristin:    00:05:28    This also always brings us to the topic of regret. Many of you have probably heard of that book, the Top Five Regrets of The Dying, and I'm gonna talk about that in a second because there's some controversy over that book. But Regret sucks as an emotion. It, it's complicated, it's uncomfortable and, and it can even feel painful. But like pretty much everything else on Earth it exists for a reason. I looked into it. And science.com says that the aching feeling of regret, it turns out, can be a great teacher over time. The pain of past experiences will prompt us to act differently in the future. On an evolutionary level, if our distant ancestors regretted dropping a rock on their foot or losing their mate to arrival, they would learn to make better future decisions that were more likely to ensure their survival and reproductive success.  

Kristin:    00:06:32    In a similar way, if you regret not asking Jessica to the prom in high school, you may be less likely to chicken out with a new girl in accounting. And that's the example that they use. But, but I have read that before that regret is basically evolutionary and it was part of the survival of the species. It's just something that we have to deal with like many emotions in life. So let's go back to that book, the Top Five Regrets of The Dying. Apparently that book was based on a really small sample size. According to one article I read, I think it could have been even among 12 people. But because there's so little scientific research about regret, it's one of the most commonly cited sources on this topic. So what are these regrets? While according to the nurse who wrote it, the most commonly cited, deathbed regret was, I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.  

Kristin:    00:07:34    And that's something that all of us can probably relate to. And that's a big part of why you're probably listening to this podcast. This is why I talk so much about location, independence and freedom. It's to draw the line between the life that society expects of you and the life that you want for yourself, and to stay on the line of what you want to do in your life, and to provide the tools and the motivation and inspiration to be able to do what it is that you want to do and really take advantage of the time that we're living in in the world. And then the other four regrets are, I wish I hadn't worked so hard, I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends and I wish that I had let myself be happier.  

Kristin:    00:08:29    Again, not a scientific list anecdotal, but really relatable. And I dove a little bit deeper into this topic. And as it turns out, there isn't much scientific consensus or studies at all on regret. But one thing that most researchers seem to agree on is that the most painful regrets are caused by inaction rather than action. And that most of the pain from regret comes from the gap between who we perceive ourselves to be and who we think our ideal self is, who we perceive ourself to be, and who we think our highest version of ourself is. And these perceptions are biased, of course, because who's to say what your true self is and what your best self is. So researchers point out that this distance, this gap between our ideal self and our actual self will always be greater than the distance between our odd self and our actual self.  

Kristin:    00:09:36    They continue by saying, we often set unattainable aspirations for ourselves. And even when we achieve more realistic expectations, we often develop new goals and new expectations that are harder to meet. So what this tells me is that on one hand, regrets are bullshit because the foundation upon why we have them is so fluid and subjective, and the bar is always moving forward. And again, I read that this sense of dissatisfaction of never being completely fulfilled or setting a goal only to then set another goal that's even harder is just part of evolution to keep the species going. I mean, we have a book of world records and people's life goals are to break these records and then those records get broken again by someone else. So this is just part of the human condition. And then the other thing with regret is that everyone experiences it differently.  

Kristin:    00:10:37    And scientists don't even know exactly which part of the brain is responsible for processing regret. They think it's the lateral orbital frontal cortex, but they don't know. So they don't know much about regret or how it's processed. But they do think that the anticipation of regret can help us avoid regrets in the future. In other words, taking action to avoid regret can help us avoid regret. What this means to me in practical terms is just that we're humans and we're gonna get it right sometimes and we're gonna get it wrong. Sometimes we're gonna make mistakes, but that we should err on the side of action. One thing research confirms is that you're more likely to regret the things you didn't do. So let's take some chances in 2022. Let's find out where the border of your comfort zone is. Our brains have protective mechanisms in place to keep us safe, but you can also override those mechanisms and you can find out that you're probably capable of much more than you think.  

Kristin:    00:11:54    Losing a friend to cancer or a family member is awful. And even though I've known Teklordz for probably, it was November of 2017, so four years ago, I don't even know his real name, but it didn't matter because I saw who he was as a person. And even though we never met in real life, I think that this connection that you can make with people online and through social media, it's real. And I don't want this to be a very sad podcast, even though I'm crying <laugh>, I want it to be motivating and inspiring. And I'm so relieved that Tek was surrounded by his friends and family members in his last days here on the planet, and that he was at peace with what was happening. I just wish for him that he had more time to do all of the things that he wanted to do in this life.  

Kristin:    00:13:04    And so I hope that in 2022, you leave behind any fears that you've had before you let go of any blocks, you just say fuck it, and just do what you wanna do. Do things you've never done before. Do things that have been little tiny seeds in your head that you thought, someday I'm gonna do that. Just do it. And I don't wanna get any more messages from people <laugh> that they are have only a certain number of days left. I don't want any regrets, even if we've never met before, even if we've never talked before. A few days ago, I went to a full moon meditation and yoga class on the night of the Full moon here in Miami. And it was also a journaling exercise. And what the, the moderators asked us to do was to write down a few words of, of what we want to embrace in 2022, and then asked us to share them with the other people who were there.  

Kristin:    00:14:17    And I had actually never done any sort of annual planning or journaling in a group <laugh> of group of people sitting in a circle at night under the moonlight, a group of complete strangers. And I got up and I went up and shared my, my words for, you know, what I want to represent and manifest in 2022. And you know, I made a lot of friends that night. And you can do that same thing too. If you can just write in your journal one or two or three words that you would like to lead you into the new year. You can also write down things that you want to leave behind. And then just write them down on a note card or a piece of paper or a sticky note and just post them where you're gonna see them. And so just try to program yourself into, you know, whatever it is that you wanna do or be or embody or experience in 2022.  

Kristin:    00:15:21    So this is a bit of a shorter podcast today, but I just wanted to to remind you that each and every one of you is completely unique. There will never be another one of you. There never has been another one of you in the history of the planet. And if you don't do what you're meant to do in this lifetime, then no one will. And so I would just like to ask you to be yourself and don't wait. Don't put things off any longer. Just do one thing that you can do today towards a better life for yourself. You don't have to have a whole master plan for 2022 or for your 10 year plan. Just think of a few words that you want to represent this upcoming year and take it from there. When someone comes into your life, it's for a reason. And so I just cherish each and every one of you that has come into my orbit and that we are sharing these conversations together, whether it's in person or over email or over the podcast, or in a YouTube video. We are here for a reason. You are here for a reason, both listening to these words right now and also here on the planet today. So I always tell people to come to me if they need permission to do anything. So I just would like to reiterate whatever it is that you're thinking of doing, uh, permission granted as long as it's a good thing. And remember that you don't have to search outside of yourself to be yourself. You just are. Happy New Year. Stay safe, stay healthy, stay well.