What do people say matters most in life?
Bronnie Ware, an Australian hospice nurse, wrote a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying based on her years caring for patients who had 12 weeks or less to live.
In it, she shares what people said about their lives as they stood face to face with death. When she asked them what they regretted, or what they would change if they could go back, the same themes kept coming up over and over.
Here are the five most common regrets people had at the end of their lives.
1. “I wish I had allowed myself to be happier.”
Many people only realize at the very end that happiness was always a choice.
“I spent my whole life sticking to what I was used to.
I lived trapped in my habits.
I was afraid to stand out, so I acted like everyone else.
The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity numbed not only my daily life,
but also my emotions.I was scared of change, so I pretended to be satisfied,
pretended to be happy in front of others—and even to myself.If I could live again, I’d laugh as much as I want,
even if people said I was being ridiculous.”
2. “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.”
“Only when I was staring at death did I realize
how precious my old friends really were.
But by then, it was too late.
Too many years had passed with no contact,
and it wasn’t easy to find them again.I was so busy getting by and keeping my life afloat
that I let golden friendships drift away with time.I regret not making time for my friends
and not putting effort into those relationships.Now that I’m dying,
I just want to see my friends again.”
When life gets busy, it’s easy to let friendships slide.
But as death approaches, the material side of life turns almost completely meaningless.
Many people do go through the process of organizing their finances and assets at the end—but not because money or status still matter to them. They do it purely out of consideration for those they’ll leave behind. And often even that’s hard: their illness may be too advanced, or their bodies too weak to make decisions.
For someone nearing the end, everything eventually comes down to love and relationships.
At the very end of life, what remains is simple:
the people you love, and the people who loved you.
3. “I wish I had been more honest about my feelings.”
“I held my emotions in because I wanted to keep the peace
and get along with people.As a result, I became a bland, forgettable person.
I never really tried to become who I truly wanted to be.Of course, that frustration built up.
The anger I swallowed hardened inside me
and eventually turned into physical illness.”
We can’t control how other people react.
But we can decide to be more honest about how we feel.
At first, people might be taken aback by your new, more direct self.
But before long, your relationships will move into a healthier, more genuine place.
You may also find that this honesty becomes an opportunity to let go of relationships that don’t actually help you live well.
Either way, you are the one who wins.
4. “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.”
This regret showed up most often in men.
“I was so busy chasing work and success
that I barely saw my kids grow up.
I didn’t really invest in my relationship with my spouse, either.”
Some women shared this regret too, but most of the patients Ware cared for were from a generation where far fewer women worked outside the home. The men she nursed almost all deeply regretted having lived like machines, running inside a hamster wheel of endless work.
If you consciously choose to live more simply,
you realize life doesn’t actually require as much money as you think.
Leave some margin in your life. Create pockets of breathing space in your days.
When you do that, new opportunities appear—opportunities that fit a different kind of lifestyle.
That’s the path to a life that feels more like living than just surviving.
5. “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”
This is the most common regret of all.
When people know their time is short, they look back over their lives more clearly than ever.
“There were so many dreams in my heart,
but most of them were pushed aside by other people’s interference, opinions, and expectations.I let almost all of them slip away.
I didn’t even try to chase half my dreams.
Now that I’m literally counting down the days,
I can see it clearly:
what I did, and what I didn’t do—
every bit of it was ultimately my choice.”
Whether you honored your own dreams or not
becomes a key measure of whether your life feels like a success.
Set clear goals that are truly your own.
That’s how you show respect for your own dreams.
Because once you lose your health,
it’s too late to go back and reclaim that freedom.
Most people only realize the freedom that health gives them
after it’s gone.
When you look back on your life someday,
which sentence would you rather say?
“Damn… I should’ve at least tried…”
or
“Wow… I can’t believe I actually did that.”
— Lucille Ball