Top five regrets of the dying

A palliative nurse who has counselled the dying in their last days has revealed the most common regrets we have at the end of our lives. 

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself,
   not the life others expected of me.
   Most people had not honored even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.
     
2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
   They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. They deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.
     
3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
   Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others and they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming.
      
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
   Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.
      
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
   Many did not realize until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to themselves, that they were content.

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A hard day's work deserves a fair day's pay

Right now, too many people are working long days for less pay than they deserve. That’s partly because of failure to update overtime regulations for years and an exemption meant for highly paid, white collar employees now leaves out workers making as little as poverty wages, no matter how many hours they work.

• A hard day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay. That’s at the heart of what it means to be middle class in America. In 2015 President Obama announced new rule that would raise the salary threshold of workers covered by overtime to $50,400, from $23,660. The beneficiaries would be people like a restaurant manager who frequently worked 60 hours a week but didn’t get overtime because she earned $36,000.
• That’s good for workers who want fair pay, and it’s good for business owners who are already paying their employees what they deserve since those who are doing right by their employees are undercut by competitors who aren’t.
• A manager at a car wash when asked for his thoughts on the new rule has said: "It would get the people be paid the way they should be paid-and stop letting these companies use your labor for free."
• Obama further said - he believes in middle-class economics, when everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules. It’s at the heart of the fundamental choice our country faces today.
• Will we accept an economy where only a few of us do exceptionally well? Or will we push for an economy where every one who works hard can contribute to and benefit from our success?
• Will we invest in programs that would help educate our children, maintain our roads and bridges, and train our workers for the high-paying jobs of the future? Or will we cut these programs, and decide to give more to the wealthiest persons instead?
• The answer is clear. Let’s invest and commit to an economy that rewards hard work, generates rising incomes, and allows everyone to share in the prosperity of a growing economy. Let’s make the critical investments we need to grow our economy and strengthen the middle class.

The workman gives as much, the capitalist gives as little, 

as the nature of the bargain will admit ... Frederick Engels

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Luck is more important to success

“If you’ve been successful, you didn’t get that on your own,” President Obama declared years ago at a campaign rally. “If you’re successful, somebody along the line gave you some help.” In America, the belief that hard work and a touch of grit is all one needs to succeed. Talent and drive can take you a long way, but it’s often not enough. Luck is as important.

• Most Americans underestimate the role of luck in economic success.
• The current American tendency is to overlook the role of luck as a cultural bias and Americans are less likely than Europeans to favor high taxes on the rich and generous benefits for the poor.
• Conservatives have a narrative about success, which prioritizes hard work and skill. Liberals have an alternative narrative about success, which prioritizes structural constraints and privilege. Neither one is entirely right, but it does seem that liberals are closer to the truth.
• People who amass great fortunes are almost always talented and hardworking. But it is also true that countless others have those same qualities yet never earn much. 
• Chance plays a much larger role in important life outcomes than most people imagine.
• The rich underestimate the importance of luck in success and why that hurts everyone, even the wealthy.
• In this world dominated by winner-take-all markets, chance opportunities and trivial initial advantages often translate into much larger ones and enormous income differences over time. 
• Luck is as important as hard work in becoming successful.
• Fortune favors the fortunate. And not acknowledging that can have unlucky consequences.
• People who succeed on a grand scale tend to believe they did it all by themselves. They think that whatever dollars came their way are theirs to keep. If the government tries to tax it, they regard it as theft. 
• Believing that all the good fortune that came your way was earned in the traditional sense is a very difficult claim to sustain once you look at how the competitions unfold and the role chance events play in all our lives.
• Ethically speaking, we have no control over the most important determinants of our lives. Even if you think you succeeded purely on the basis of talent and effort, where do you think you got your talent? Where do you think that inclination to work hard comes from? These are things determined by genes and upbringing and it's quite ludicrous to claim moral credit for them.
• Privilege has a way of blinding the privileged. People born into good fortune can’t appreciate how much of their success stems from the care and attention and resources they received at every stage of their development.
• You're probably not going to succeed if you don't get really good at work and effort. You shouldn't expect and wait with hope that lightning strikes. Tell people to try to deserve whatever it is that they want. That doesn't mean you'll get it, but you're certainly not going to get it if you don't deserve it.
• We really need to make the investments where the environment is conducive for talented and hard-working chances of succeeding. In America it was always true that if you work hard and are good, you may not be a spectacular success, but you'd most likely prosper to a reasonable degree.
• Rich people could pay more taxes and scarcely feel it, but nobody thinks about it that way.

Markets are not perfectly meritocratic. They're more meritocratic now than ever before in the past. Privilege always matters. Most of the people who emerge as big winners today do tend to be talented and hard-working, so there's at least a semblance of meritocracy. What's also true is that being hard-working and talented are by no means sufficient to get you into the winner's circle. Luck matters a great deal.

Luck is far more important to success in this life than we imagine.
 Things we're not entitled to claim moral credit for are the driving forces 
behind success ... Robert H. Frank

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30 Second Speech by Bryan Dyson – Former CEO of Coca-Cola

Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. 
You name them – Work, Family, Health, Friends and Spirit and you’re keeping all of these in the Air.

You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. 
But the other four Balls – Family, Health, Friends and Spirit – are made of glass. 
If you drop one of these; they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for it.

Work efficiently during office hours and leave on time. 
Give the required time to your family, friends and have proper rest.

Value has a value only if its values is valued.