> After my mother died, I wished I'd spent more time with her.
Sometimes I wonder this about my own parents. I haven't seen them in over a year. I have no desire to see them either, and am dreading the obligatory Christmas call.
I see a ton of advice floating around these days about "make sure to visit your parents a lot, because you'll regret it after they die if you don't". But there's another side to the "life is short" coin: maybe it's not worth spending time with people that make you intensely unhappy, even if those people are your parents.
It’s definitely context dependent. But I spent the last few years of my dad’s life not really speaking to him much, and when he died - suddenly at the age of 53 - I realized it had been for really petty reasons. The things I disagreed with him on blinded me to what really mattered: he was still my dad.
This year I sold my company, and as exciting as that has been, I wish I could have told him about it. :(
> After my mother died, I wished I'd spent more time with her.
Sometimes I wonder this about my own parents. I haven't seen them in over a year. I have no desire to see them either, and am dreading the obligatory Christmas call.
I see a ton of advice floating around these days about "make sure to visit your parents a lot, because you'll regret it after they die if you don't". But there's another side to the "life is short" coin: maybe it's not worth spending time with people that make you intensely unhappy, even if those people are your parents.