"There is nothing better to do than to take care of yourself"

For decades, Grace does what is expected of her: she marries, has children and is bullied by her husband. When he comes to a nursing home, "she thought she could start a new life now," writes Bronnie Ware in her book, "5 Things The Most Dying Of The Dying." But within a few months, Grace becomes terminally ill - and asks Bronnie, her nurse, "never to be diverted from what you want to do."

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Why are so many people shifting their lives to someday? ChroniquesDuVasteMonde Roser: The most important point is: denied finitude. We know that we have to die. But not today. Today, it's none of my business.

That's right. Yes. But we should always go back to life from the back. Imagine yourself in the future for a moment. You are sitting in the armchair, you are 85 years old and look back on your life: What do you want to see then? What should have happened there? The second step is to think: Am I actually on course?

Or should I start playing the piano now ... ... or looking for a new partner. But most of the time, we calm down with the sentence for a lifetime: I can do it all later.

What do we gain by dealing with finitude? Value. The cherry blossom in Japan is therefore causing the nation to euphoria, because it does not run for twelve weeks, but only a few days. Finitude defines the preciousness and value of what we have.

Are there any wrong life dreams? Yes, too. I used to have a bank accountant who always raved that he really wanted to write children's books. We played it through. And the obstacles to becoming a children's book author were so great that he kept coming back that this is not possible at the moment. And we had to think the other way around. If there are so many reasons that are more important to me at the moment ...

... then maybe those are just damn good reasons? Exactly. And then it's about making friends with it. I should love and honor it. There is no reason to call against it. My life plan may not be suitable for winning the Pulitzer Prize or going to the "gala," but I picked it that way. That can be a huge relief.

How can I support somebody else who does not find his true life out of excuses? The biggest service of friendship is not to talk too often about excuses: with all due respect and just because I like you so much, let's not repeat this conversation endlessly. If you're ready to do something, I'm happy to assist you. But I do not want to talk about why it does not work. First, we both bore each other awfully. Second, it does not help us one step further.

Why do we keep doing things that we know are not really good for us? A friend once taught me the notion of radical self-care: I take myself seriously at any time and am well liked to be liked. Unfortunately only very few people do that. Mostly because we internalized in childhood: pull yourself together.

Radical self-care, that sounds very selfish. But it is not. One should ask yourself the question: What would I wish for my children to say about me later? When we really think about it, we realize that the greatest gift that parents can give their children is their own happiness in addition to their love for them. You can not do anything better for the rest of the world than to take care of yourself and make sure you're happy. Then nobody else has to pay my misfortune.