The Top Five Regrets of the Dying

In her book “The Top Five Regrets of the Dying”, Bronnie Ware shared five most commonly mentioned ‘regrets’ by terminally ill patients in palliative care. In her work as a care taker, Bronnie sat by the bedsides of dying people and had intimate conversations. She discovered that many people have regrets about doing or not doing something in life. She found that there were commonalities among them, and shared the top five regrets that she discovered in her blog. Her article gained so much momentum, and later she published this book which includes her personal story of transforming her life. The book is read by over a million people in 32 languages, including Japanese.

When I first learned about Bronnie’s article and her findings, I was a serious workaholic. The second of the top five regrets the dying is ‘I wish I hadn’t worked so hard’. This made me think what I would regret if I had only few weeks left in my life. I loved my job at the United Nations, which was aligned with my personal purpose. However, I thought that I would most probably have the same regret if I were to die soon. 

I prioritized work over everything else for many years. I believed that working hard was a good thing. However, long working hours and consistently high stress level were starting to take a toll on my health. I had to re-think the way I worked and lived, in order to continue working. I wanted to maintain high performance at work and become healthier at the same time. I wanted to feel more energized to perform at my best. Through my quest, I realized that my body is my most important asset, and only ‘I’ can take care of it. I tried different methods and learned many things, which helped me to work more efficiently and become healthier. In addition to learning new things, I also ‘unlearned’ some old beliefs, which no longer served me. One of those old believes was that “working hard is good”. 

I now believe that it is more important to focus on what we achieve and not how hard we work. I don't mean that achievements are everything and efforts don't matter. Also, even if you fail, if you learned something in the process, that is an achievement. I broadened my scope to look at all aspects of life, with work being only one part of it. I started to explore ways to live a more balanced life. I learned that having a better balance positively impacts all elements in life. This is easier said (or written) than done, and I am still in the middle of my journey.

Here are the other four top regrets of the dying as discovered by Bronnie and written in her article and the book:

1 - I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life of others expected of me.
3 - I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4 - I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5 - I wish that I had let myself be happier.

As I looked up Bronnie’s article again to write today’s post, I realized that I needed to read this most.

I think my future self will ask me this - ‘what are you waiting for?'