Top five regrets of the dying | Death and dying | The Guardian
1 Feb 2012
There was no mention of more sex or bungee jumps. A palliative nurse who has counselled the dying in their last days has revealed the most common regrets we have at the end of our lives. And among the top, from men in particular, is 'I wish I hadn't worked so hard'.
Bronnie Ware is an Australian nurse who spent several years working in palliative care, caring for patients in the last 12 weeks of their lives. She recorded their dying epiphanies in a blog called Inspiration and Chai, which gathered so much attention that she put her observations into a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.
[...]
I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
I wish that I had let myself be happier.
Well those are depressing.
I wonder if in the future the top reasons will change.
I wonder how many old people just never came out of the closet and that's why 1 and 3 are up there
The nature of these things, I think, is that even if you had done everything right it wouldn't be enough. I doubt a single person has ever made it to the end of their life totally satisfied.
oh damn, well, i'm too young to drink so there's a good bit
probably that I haven't got my current project off the ground running, that I spent so much effort on maintaining a GPA that would never be useful to me, that I haven't attempted to date, and i never got to socially or physically transition. ascending order really.
you're too young to drink and you are talking about stuff you never got to do? make like nike and just do it, maybe have a drink first or something, might get your courage up
yeah I know lol. I'm just answering the prompt as is :shrug-outta-hecks:
you know at one job I had there was a lady who was definitely well into the 50s who was really just starting to transition and was the sweetest and everyone loved her, and you know, I guess what I'm trying to get at is that it's never too late, "best time and second best time to plant a tree" and all that, but you're really.... respectfully, it's kind of too young to have regrets about things you didn't do (idk how to say that and mean no disrespect, hopefully you get what I'm saying), but don't have regrets later about not doing things before
I too would really like to get over my shit and live free and open before I die
That I didn't escape the struggle, born into and killed under it. I just want a fucking house mate, not having to appease landlords and beg them to be approved to hand over half my income for shelter.
lowkey hoping to find out I have terminal cancer at the very outbreak of the revolution, so I have an excuse to do some very cool shit.
My biggest regret would be getting another job if I were to die today. I got a job so I wouldn't be a leech on my mother, but if I'm to die today, then there was no reason to fill the last month of my life with such misery. I'd also say I wish I quit my old job sooner because getting fired for transphobic reasons sucks and did a major bunch of shit on my mental health. Frankly I don't know why I haven't ended it myself yet, there's nothing to really look forward to and just extra suffering coming day after day. I would say I'm happy with how much I've followed the things that interest me in life and how I've lived my life to be who I'm comfortable as, even if it means more people treat me like dirt. Still. Shit looks bleak as hell and the future looks even worse, but I like my cats and I like some of the niche indie games I find on itch.io or the patreon games I can now support because I have a paycheck. But saying I regret where I am now, I really don't. I tried to keep up with friends from high school and college and from when I lived in Japan, they're the ones that didn't reciprocate. I've given up on trying to find a relationship and I'm kinda happy to just live for myself, maybe I'll find someone along the way, but I'm not really regretting it at this point. I do regret ignoring my mother's advice and trying to go to a scam college before community college and getting a bunch of student loans that I'm now straddled with.
I feel like I regret being born into a capitalist world and that I've just kept going despite it all.
I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
Related to that, I wish I had realized I was trans and acted on it earlier. So much time being miserable in my body without knowing why, and then a while KNOWING why and being too scared to act on it or even fully acknowledge it. Being trans is scary, but it's also fucking dope even outside the "I don't hate my body now" aspects.
No one is ever too old to transition, and truth be told I'm younger than a LOT of people choosing to start transitioning. But still, I spent so much time living inauthentically
:volcel-judge: [REDACTED BY.THE VOLCEL PEOPLE'S MILITIA] :volcel-vanguard:
