Top 5 Regrets of the Dying

If you are reading this email then you are like me and that heading really got your attention!

I consider myself lucky …yes lucky in that I have had a fear of dying happen to me in my life some 15 years ago. This was in the 45 minutes that I sat outside the surgeon’s office waiting to hear if my tumor was malignant or benign. As I sat there with my husband waiting to walk in I was faced with the fear that I might die. The thoughts that went through my head were all about my family.

I never once thought of work or anything else for that matter. All I thought about was my husband and my kids. When I received the good news in the surgeons office…it was benign and operable then what I had gone through in my mind while waiting outside his office was a revelation. It was a revelation that nothing else is really important except for those you love.

Those 45 minutes changed my whole perspective in life and made me realize that my life could come to an end at any time.  It totally changed my attitude to life and made me determined that when I get to that stage when my time is up then I will have no regrets.

We do not know when our final moments will be and yet most of us travel through life thinking that time is endless. We assume that we will be around for a long time and that we can put off the things we really want to do because we have so much time and we can do it at a later stage.

In effect we are drifting through life we are not living it.

If this is you ……then read these regrets below. They will surely get you thinking

Top five regrets of the dying

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 book.

Ware writes of the phenomenal clarity of vision that people gain at the end of their lives, and how we might learn from their wisdom. “When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently,” she says, “common themes surfaced again and again.”

Here are the top five regrets of the dying, as witnessed by Ware:

This was the number one  regret. When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. 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.

Health brings a freedom very few realize, until they no longer have it.

This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. All of the men  deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.

Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.

Often they would not truly realize the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.

This is a  common one. Many did not realize until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.

If this article has hit home with you and you feel its time to change the direction of your life then listening to The Millionaires Brain will make you think!

 what will you set out to achieve or change before you die?