be the people with the greatest clarity about life. I decided it was
those who were nearing the end of theirs. If starting with the end in
mind is a good idea, then there’s no end further than the very end of
life to look for clues about how to live. I wondered what people with
nothing left to do but look back might tell me about how to move
forward. Their collective voice was overwhelming, the answer clear:
live your life to minimize the regrets you might have at the end.
What kind of regrets? For me, very few books cause tears, much
less require a handkerchief, but Bronnie Ware’s 2012 book The Top
Five Regrets of the Dying did both. Ware spent many years caring for
those facing their own mortality. When she questioned the dying
about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently,
Bronnie found that common themes surfaced again and again. In
descending order, the five most common were these: I wish that I’d
let myself be happier—too late they realized happiness is a choice; I
wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends—too often they failed to give
them the time and effort they deserved; I wish I’d had the courage to
express my feelings—too frequently shut mouths and shuttered
feelings weighed too heavy to handle; I wish I hadn’t worked so
hard—too much time spent making a living over building a life
caused too much remorse.
As tough as these were, one stood out above them all. The most
common regret was this: I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true
to myself not the life others expected of me. Half-filled dreams and
unfulfilled hopes: this was the number-one regret expressed by the
dying. As Ware put it, “Most people had not honored even a half of
their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they
had made, or not made.”
Bronnie Ware’s observations aren’t hers alone. At the conclusion
of their exhaustive research, Gilovich and Medvec in 1994 wrote,
“When people look back on their lives, it is the things they have not
done that generate the greatest regret.... People’s actions may be
coco
(coco)
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