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Sunday, February 05, 2012

The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.


Pablo Picasso
(1881-1973)
La Mort de Casagemas
1901
Oil on wood panel
0.270 m.  x  0.350 m
Musée Picasso, Paris

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 blog called Inspiration and Chai, which gathered so much attention that she put her observations into a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying

As witnessed by Ware, the top five regrets are :

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
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.

The readers of The Guardian responded with a list of their regrets:

Here are some:

Speakman Not enough sex. 
Bliad I regret not looking after my teeth when I was younger. 
Glasstreacle Spending too much time on the internet. 
Ripplic Should have come out sooner, my family hate me but at least I'm living my life. 
kymonca Leaving that evening without saying "I love you". 
Oviller I lose count of the amount of times where I've not liked someone, really liked someone, thought someone was bad for me and not expressed these feelings at all and regretted it. 
UnknownGunman Breaking someone's heart. 
NomNomme Spending your dying hours regretting stuff, although your life was relatively nice and comfortable compared to most of the world's population. 
Jackanapes I wish I'd had more confidence. 
PatriciaInOttawa I wish I hadn't married so young and I wish I had studied and worked abroad and had more adventures before marrying. 
roastpudding My biggest regret would be if I don't manage to see a large proportion of the amazing things there are to see and experience around the world. 
callumgg Not spending enough time taking things slow. I never stop to look at things, even when I have the time. 
Ignatiusgrant Not becoming a rock star. 
esarbee Meeting my wife!

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