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.
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