“The greatest burden a child must bear is the unlived life of its parents.”  — Carl Jung

How do you interpret this quote? Let me guess: you’re picturing the thwarted beauty queen who encourages bulldozes little Kimmie into rabidly-competitive pageantry as soon as she’s in Pullups. Yes, parents have been known to live vicariously through their kids—pushing them into activities and studies and beauty contests they wish they’d have pursued in their youth. (We’ve all seen how those movies end 😬.)

Let’s talk about a different take on the Jung quote, though.

As grown adults, we can observe our parents’ “unlived lives” (goals and hopes and dreams that never saw the light of day) and decide whether we want to follow in their footsteps or learn what not to do and course-correct our own regrets-in-the-making.

Studies show we’re more likely to regret the things we didn’t do than the things we did do … so it stands to reason that most of our parents demonstrated some kind of “coulda shoulda woulda” while we were growing up about a path they wistfully didn’t take. This might have been a situational one-off, or a highly thematic way of being. We maybe didn’t think anything of it that dad never became the golf pro he longed to be, for example, or we internalized it as a message that dreams aren’t worth pursuing.

My mom died at 58 with a litany of entries in her (imaginary) coulda shoulda woulda journal. I was going to write all about it here and then I remembered I had already written about it in my book! So I’m going to do a little cut and paste for you here to share the story…

Highly Relevant Book Excerpt!

I have a deep-rooted fear of getting to the end and feeling woefully disappointed—not so much by the life I lived but by the life I didn’t live.

For this I have my mom to thank.

I’ve already mentioned that she died with a full Compendium of Lost and Unfulfilled Dreams. I’ve also already mentioned the vestiges of half-baked plans I sifted and sorted through as I cleaned up her place after she died: writings, drawings, business cards made at home on her inkjet printer (you know the ones you buy at Staples—with the perforated lines to tear the cards apart?). She was a wondiferous dreamer … but not so much a doer. Some of us are content to dream all day and not execute on the idea du jour, but my mom did indeed feel the sting of stagnation.

As a manic-depressive, creative soul who churned out chapters and ideas and homemade dog treats and hand-carved hiking sticks through her manic highs, she’d pull the pin on her plans when she was down in the dumps. The cycle was predictable and heartrending to watch unfold, again and again. I’d cheer her on for every newfangled notion (“Wow, Mom! Take a Hike is an amazing name for your hiking stick business!”) and then watch her bury the idea alive. I have a photo of her at some kind of outdoor flea market in British Columbia, sitting behind a makeshift table with her sticks on display. She had tied cute little handmade logoed price tags on the tops of them, which somehow makes the story sadder. She didn’t sell any hiking sticks that day, and so the Take a Hike empire folded before it really even began.

My mom wrote a children’s book in the early ’80s called Dreamdust, and it included everything a bookworm daughter wanted in its pages: a beautifully illustrated protagonist mouse named Arlo, a cast of cute and clever animal sidekicks, and the fantasy of all the dreams that would come true after Arlo sprinkled his dreamdust willy-nilly over his buddies in the forest. (My mom would sprinkle imaginary dreamdust on me every night at tuck-in time, à la Arlo; it didn’t stop me from peeing the bed, but it did curb my bad dreams.) She sent the manuscript out to a few publishers and lost the nerve to press on after the first wave of rejections. Where was her own sprinkling of dreamdust?

This irony-laden tale is what I grew up with: I learned to value the glimmers of creativity, to hope for dreamdust to do its thing (I no longer pee the bed, FYI), and then to throw in the towel before a project even stood a chance. I come by my own fears of rejection and failure honestly. Witnessing my mom’s dormant dreams splayed out bare as I cleaned out her apartment woke me up to my own chickenheartedness. I did not want to live a life with dead-on-arrival dreams.

So I took a Take a Hike perforated business card out of her desk drawer (for posterity’s sake), stuffed her Dreamdust manuscript in my backpack (right beside her box of ashes), and packed her orange cat named Teddy into his carrier, and as I locked up her empty place, I committed to live a regret-free life. At least I’d die trying. (Okay, the excerpt stops here, folks.)

What’s the deal with YOUR parents?

Whether they are alive or dead, what might your parent’s “unlived lives” regrets be?

• Maybe your Mom wanted to visit Rio de Janeiro but never made the time (traveling is the top item on most people’s bucket lists).
• Perhaps your Dad really wanted to run a marathon, but never committed to the training.
• Your Mom might’ve wanted to apply for the bigger job at her office, but then said, “I probably won’t get promoted” and threw the application form out.
• Maybe your Dad wanted to go back to school for that special certificate in his industry but then just … let the goal inexplicably fizzle.
• Your Mom maybe always dreamed of skydiving but then said “I’m too old now”—something she started saying at 40. (40!!!)
• Perhaps your Dad always wanted to learn how to speak Spanish so he could go on that mission trip in Mexico, but he never made the time and talked wistfully about it for years.
• Other examples? I’ve heard from many of you when I posed this question on Instagram and I know our parents have oodles of stagnant dreams. Please share your parental regret stories with me at jodi at fourthousandmondays dot com, and while I’ll never use your name, I will add your anecdote to a running list I’m building for a workshop. I love your examples.

What is the impact of your parents’ “paths not taken” on you? 

Maybe your parents demonstrated the Fully Lived Life, and you don’t have the foggiest idea of what I’m talking about. Yay for you! Keep living like you mean it out there.

But for the rest of us who have parents that maybe didn’t role model “going for it” so stellar-ly…

Are you inheriting your parents’ “all talk, no action” way of being?

Are you consciously overriding your “dream-then-don’t-do” upbringing to live in a way that would make you proud on your deathbed?

Does thinking about their “paths not taken” inspire you to live with more intention and gusto?

It’s possible your parents lived wide and deep but still had a project or endeavor they left on the table; are you also holding back on a goal, like they did? Or are you going full tilt, in the face of fear, anyways?

I come by my own fears of moving forward with intimidating dreams honestly, but I’m more motivated to go for it and fail than to not try and regret it later.

My hope is that you, too, are willing to reflect on the impact your parents had on your vitality and go-for-it-ness. And then my real hope is that you go for it regardless of what they modeled for you … not in spite of them, but maybe even in honor of them.