Do you have any regrets?
What do you think you will regret when you get older? Bronnie Ware, an Australian nurse spent years working in palliative care, looking after people in the last 12 weeks of their lives and she wrote a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.
One of the things she writes about is the phenomenal clarity of vision that people gain at the end of their lives, and how we might learn from their wisdom.
“When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently,” she says, “common themes surfaced again and again.”
Here are the top five regrets of the dying, as witnessed by Ware:
1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
“This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.”
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
“This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret, but as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.”
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
“Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.”
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
“Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.”
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
“This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.”
What’s your greatest regret so far, and what will you set out to achieve or change before you die?
Millions of people regret not finding out more about their parents and grandparents lives. Don’t let your family live this with regret — write your life story.
autodotbiography is an online program which will hold your hand all the way through the process and guarantees that you will create a beautifully written and lavishly illustrated hardback book of your life story for your family.
To find out how easy it is to write your own autobiography, you could sign up for a free trial of autodotbiography here. And there is free helpful advice on how to do it here.
I created autodotbiography after my beloved mother, Peggy, died. Going through her papers I realised how much more there was to discover and desperately wished I had found out more during my mother’s lifetime. And so I vowed to try and help others not to make the same mistake. I knew that the rich or famous, could employ expensive ghost writers to pen their autobiographies, but what of the majority of people who had a precious story to tell their family, but who felt they couldn’t afford to employ a writer and who were also daunted by the prospect of tackling it on their own?
After 12 years of working on the idea, autodotbiography was gently launched at the ‘Who Do You Think You Are?” exhibition in February 2011.
