"He wasted his life", sounds so dramatic, but what does it really mean. It's just an emotion like regret triggered by made up standards. If things were different and in the end they would have said "he lived his best life", what difference would it make except a few different words, differently arranged.
Not sure what my point is, but perhaps being too much into Buddhism and similar things made me lose touch with more normal human emotions.. or I live in regret myself and push it aside, ha.
There is some sociology/psychology research based on concepts like the Maslow's hierarchy of needs that motivate human behavior. There is also memoirs of Bonnie Ware, "Regrets of the Dying", where she as a nurse at an old folks home over several years interviewed people who are about to die and their regrets turn out to be:
not living a life true to oneself, working too hard, not having the courage to express feelings, losing touch with friends, and not allowing oneself to be happier.
With a heavy overweight on the first point.
I think that the comment "he wasted his life" is supposed to be in reference to this, that most people realize at the end that nothing really mattered, and that they chose to follow the structures of society by default instead of daring to do what they inherently wanted intrinsically. Then you can feel as your life was wasted, you got a single chance to play around and do what you like with your brief time in the universe and you chose to let someone else dictate how that was going to go, a waste.
The thing is, that This is speculation (with all respect).
I, on the other hand, do not lack courage to do hard things. But I have learned that it is a strawman - it does not make you happier to quite you job, leave your spouse, go for your passion in a startup, etc.
Luckily I fucked up everything in that fever dream early enough that it did not have substantiel impact on my life.
He wanted to have a different life, but he didn't embrace it. Instead he lied to his wife and lover. In a more recent update he was cheating on his way lover as well, so he comes out looking pretty bad. At the end of the story everyone in his family is hurt by his actions. Send like he wasted his life and hers if that was the best he could do
Not sure what my point is, but perhaps being too much into Buddhism and similar things made me lose touch with more normal human emotions.. or I live in regret myself and push it aside, ha.