The Top Five Regrets of the Dying
In this book Bronnie Ware talks about how her journey from working for money to working for meaning, she found herself in a corporate job that did offer financial security but she wasn't working from her heart and went on to do some traveling around Australia and overseas.
She then decided to work in palliative care without formal qualifications and based on her conversations with the people she cared for she started to blog about the most common regrets they expressed at the end of their lives.
Bronnie talks about how some people seek validation from material possessions until they realise that there has to be more to life. She proposes to face the idea of death before that time comes and to put our time, energy and priorities in those things that we truly value; and reminds us that when we understand this we are less driven by ego and external opinions and we give ourselves permission to follow our hearts.
Regret 1: I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me
She explains that she was in a job that did nothing for her soul and decided to make a change, which makes us reflect on those times when we are not being true to ourselves in a job and we stay there for long time because that becomes our comfort zone.
I agree when she states that we are the product of our environment and that it's up to us choosing the right people in our environment. They don't have to be people whose steps we necessarily want to follow but rather those we feel inspired by, learn from and have thoughtful conversations with.
Her definition of Success is being true to oneself and act in line with that, and not giving others the power of making that decision for us.
Regret 2: I wish I hadn't worked so hard
This was the regret of one her clients who had worked so hard and didn't spend enough time with his wife, she had been planning trips for retirement which never happened because she died. He learned that when we keep postponing plans for the future we always make the assumption that we have all the time in the world to do them and the truth is that we might not.
One way of looking at life is to think of that moment when we are at the end of our lives and look back and reflect on what we would regret we had done different.
When people do what they love and love what they do, work doesn't feel like work but rather an extension of them, however, we may be leaving out spending time with those people who have always been supportive in our life journey.
Also, because we don't know how long life is, it's not wise to leave our big goals for other people to decide for us, we need to take responsibility.
One of her clients raised a question to think about: Is Your Life Simple?
Regret 3: I wish I had the courage to express my feelings more
Some people don't express their feelings to their family and friends for emotional or cultural reasons, others may see it as a sign of weakness. All those reasons are made up them up in their heads until one day they realise that time passed by and they can't go back.
Regret 4: I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends
The author invites us to appreciate our good friends. Making time for them either in person or even by phone could be enough to remember old times and keep in contact for years. Under some circumstances they may be the only family that we have, and sometimes with simple act of kindness we could make a new friend.
Regret 5: I wish I had let myself be happier
The main idea of this regret is that we can be whoever we allow ourselves to be. The decision of enjoying the good little moments and expressing gratitude for them is ours. Time flies by and all we have is the moment we are in, every day is blessing that sometimes we take for granted, and surely a person in his deathbed would agree with that. Do we feel thankful for every day we live?
The freedom to be ourselves is ours regardless of where we live, and if we can't do it where we are then our job is to work hard to find that right place. We choose how we spend our remaining days.
I loved this idea:
“Life doesn’t owe us anything. We only owe ourselves, to make the most of the life we are living, of the time we have left, and to live in gratitude.”
Quite often all it takes is a change of perspective on how we see the world around us.
“Have you thought about these regrets before? Has that driven you to make big decisions?”