The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying

"The Top Five Regrets of the Dying". That is a name of a book I've read recently. It is written by a palliative nurse Bronnie Ware that took care of dying people and witnessed their last days. All of them shared with her their life experiences, fears, desires, loves, and most all regrets. Later she decided to summarize what she had learned about others and wrote a book about it. This book shows how people try to look for peace when they face  death which leads to some form of growth. They grow in many ways and realize a lot about their life and decisions. They all dealt with similar regretful feelings and these ones were the most common ones:

I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expect of me.

When people looked back, they realized their choices were unnecessarily affected by others. Their dreams and desires were unfulfilled because it was "unacceptable" in society.

I wish I hadn't worked so hard

A lot of her patients, mostly men, mentioned this regret. And it is not even that surprising- we spend so much time working and worrying about earning money, we eventually forget about our personal life, our family, or our dreams. These patients realized in their last days that work brought them nothing in the end (except money) because they missed all the great milestones.

I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings

This is a very common thing in our society. We hide our feelings to keep peace with others and not to burden anyone. But it is a huge problem. We need to share our emotions with others to keep our inner peace.

I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends

When you're alone and dying, you look back at your true friends. They all regretted not keeping these people close. They get caught up with their own lives, didn't have time for each other, and eventually lost them. Some of them tried to reach them in their moments but it was unsuccessful in many cases. They all missed them very much and regretted giving up on their friendships.

I wish that I had let myself be happier

In my opinion, this one is the saddest but also the most encouraging one. We should live our lives in order to gain as much as possible from it. Never limit our happiness, because in the end what else do we have except happy memories. Only regrets... Never fear of any change or risk, because you will get stuck in stereotype and never feel happiness again.

There was a part that I found extremely interesting and I would love to mention it here. It came from a patient named Doris who talked about loneliness. She said: "I am dying because of loneliness. I've heard it is possible and it really is. Loneliness can kill you. Sometimes I even starve for a human touch". This was truly heartbreaking to read because these days in quarantine we all kind of suffer from loneliness. It is important to talk about its danger and fight against it.

I have to say this was one of the best books I have ever read. It was touching, emotional, motivating, enlightening and so much more. I would recommend this book to anyone, so no one ends up regretting at the end of their lives. It even gives you insight into Bronnie Ware's life which was very complicated and brave.

Checked by J.C