Confession of a Dying Economist

This is a funny story I read on the Internet about a dying economist.

My father, like me, was an economist. He was not a star, but if you work in asset pricing you probably know of his work. This past weekend, he passed away.

As the end approached, he became very philosophical. At one point, I asked him if he had any regrets. He replied:

"Do you remember that summer when we rented a cottage in Maine?"

He was talking about a memorable family vacation. One where we spent three carefree weeks together on a lake. My kid sister took her first steps there and I learned to swim there.

I told him that I did. Then, he said the following:

"That summer, I had an idea for an extension of the CAPM model. But being on vacation, someone beat me to it. I regret ever taking that trip. If we stayed home, it could have been me publishing in Economica."

A few hours later, he died.

— eac1, A thread on Econ Job Rumors Forum

It's obviously online humor, but I enjoy the contradiction of the usual wisdom of death bed stories and always have a hard time finding it without using an o3 Deep Research so I'm caching it here.