Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

by Lori Gottlieb

We think we make bucket lists to ward off regret, but really they help us to ward off death. After all, the longer our bucket lists are, the more time we imagine we have left to accomplish everything on them.

“Modern man thinks he loses something — time — when he does not do things quickly; yet he does not know what to do with the time he gains except kill it.”

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”

“Almost is always the hardest, isn’t it?” she said one afternoon. “Almost getting something. Almost having a baby. Almost getting a clean scan. Almost not having cancer anymore.” I thought about how many people avoid trying for things they really want in life because it’s more painful to get close to the goal but not achieve it than not to have taken the chance in the first place.