It’s a sunny winter’s afternoon, about 3.15pm – chilly, but all seems well with the world. What if I told you that, despite appearances, this was your last day of life? What would you do in your final hours? What would be your biggest regret? What would you have done more of? And less of?
Bronnie Ware, an Australian nurse, spent several years working in palliative care, tending to patients in the final weeks of their lives. She recorded their dying epiphanies in her blog Inspiration and Chai (which I posted a link to some time ago) and now has collected her observations into a book – The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.
As reported in today’s Guardian and Telegraph, Ware noticed a “phenomenal clarity of vision” that people gain at the end of their lives, and that there is much we can learn from their wisdom.
So here are the top five regrets of the dying, as witnessed by nurse Ware:
1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
While most of the people Ware cared for were of the wartime generations, and therefore had survival on their minds rather than introspection or fulfilment, this is nevertheless a poignant read. So what can we, and future generations, learn from these regrets?
1. Don’t let the expectations of others weigh you down. Connect with the part of you that knows what is right for you and you can avoid the heavy regret of not following your deepest truth.
2. Hard work was once necessary for survival. Ask yourself, do I really need to work hard and struggle in order to thrive? If you are able to bring love into whatever you do, it will never seem like work anyway.
3. Getting in touch with our emotions and being able to express them with clarity and respect to others is one of the keys to long-term flourishing, as is clearing out old emotional baggage.
4. Close, intimate relationships are vital to human beings – it’s so important to maintain our connection with friends over the years.
5. You don’t need permission to be happy. Happiness is your birthright. It isn’t “out there”, it’s “in here”.
However old you are right now, stop for a moment to reflect. Do I have any regrets? And if so, is there anything I can do differently now? Live life fully while you still have time.
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