The Top 5 Regrets of Dying People

The strawberries taste like strawberries. The snozberries taste like snozberries.

This is the Music Makers podcast where I read things out loud to you and then offer my unqualified opinions on them. Top 5 Regrets of the Dying by Bronnie Ware. For many years, I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared.

I was with them for the last 3 to 12 weeks of their lives. People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality. I learned never to underestimate someone's capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions as expected.

Denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial, and, eventually, acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed, though, every one of them. When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five. Number 1.

I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. This was the most common regret of all. 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. It is very important to try and honor at least some of your dreams along the way.

From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realize until they no longer have it. Number 2. I wish I didn't work so hard. This came from every male patient that I nursed.

They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence. By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do.

And by creating more space in your life, you become happier and more open to new opportunities, ones more suited to your new lifestyle. Number 3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings. Many people suppress 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. We cannot control the reactions of others. However, although people may initially react when you change the way you are by speaking honestly, in the end, it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level. Either that or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life. Either way, you win.

Number 4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. 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. It is common for anyone in a busy lifestyle to let friendships slip. But when you are faced with your approaching death, the physical details of life fall away. People do want to get their financial affairs in order if possible, but it is not money or status that holds the true importance for them. They want to get things in order more for the benefit of those they love.

Usually, though, they are too ill and weary to ever manage this task. It all comes down to love and relationships in the end. That is all that remains in the final weeks, love and relationships. Number 5, I wish I had let myself be happier. This is a surprisingly 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 themselves that they were content. When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.

When you are on your deathbed, what others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again long before you are dying. Life is a choice. It is your life. Choose consciously.

Choose wisely. Choose honestly. Choose happiness. I know what you're thinking. Wow.

Good holiday article choice, Aaron. Why don't you pick a more depressing one next time? And I I could've picked a more depressing one, but it would've been difficult to find. But there is a reason that I picked this article for this time of the year. New Year's is typically a time filled with hope and the desire for change.

People look back at the year and think, well, there are some things that I didn't really do that well. There are some things that I wanna change. They look forward to the new year and say, there are some things I wanna implement. In the new year, I wanna do this thing better. I wanna do less of this and more of that.

This time of year is typically filled with optimism. It's kinda like a a fresh start. So people are all amped up and thinking this is gonna be the best year ever. I'm gonna change a bunch of stuff. But for the most part, we only really know what to change relative to our own experiences.

This year, I put on a bunch of weight, so next year, I want to exercise more, which is a great way to make goals, obviously, relative to your own experiences. But here's why I like this article and why I chose it as the last episode before the new year. Whenever you're doing something that you've never done before, what do you typically do? You get advice from people who have done it, Whether it's starting a new job or getting married or having kids, you look to people who have done those things before to tell you about their experiences. But we don't normally get that with life.

We get people saying, oh, here's what you should do in your twenties, or here's what I wish I did in my thirties or my forties. But there aren't a lot of resources for people saying, well, this is the end of my life. Here's everything I learned. Here's everything I wish I did differently. Here's everything I'm glad I did.

Because the people described in this article have done it. They're at the end of their lives, and they're looking back, and they're saying, please listen. Please listen to me. I've lived my full life. Now that I've done it once, I have some ideas of how I would do it differently, but I can't do it differently.

This is it. That was my one turn. It's your turn now, and your turn's not over yet. So as much as you're able, please listen to what I experienced. There are some really good ones in here.

Let me just run through the 5 again. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. I wish I didn't work so hard. I wish I had the courage to express my feelings. I wish I'd stayed in touch with my friends, and I wish I'd let myself be happier.

A couple of these boil down to not caring about what other people think. Not caring if people think you're weird. Not caring if people think you're crazy for not choosing the beaten path. But the one that I really wanna focus on is number 4. I wish I'd stayed in touch with my friends.

My dad recently sent me a link to a TED Talk, which I'll include in the show notes. This talk is about lessons learned from the longest study on happiness. For 75 years, the Harvard study of adult development tracked the lives of 724 men, year after year asking question after question about their work, their home lives, or health. Since 1938, they've tracked the lives of 2 groups of men. The first were sophomores at Harvard, and the second was a group of boys from Boston's poorest neighborhood chosen specifically because they came from some of the most troubled and disadvantaged families in Boston in the thirties.

They've been tracking these guys for 75 years, and I'll skip straight to the good part. Here's Robert Waldinger.

So what have we learned? What are the lessons that come from the tens of thousands of pages of information that we've generated on these lives. Well, the lessons aren't about wealth or fame or working harder and harder. The clearest message that we get from this 75 year study is this, good relationships keep us happier and healthier, period.

Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. He goes on to prove the happier part, and he goes on to prove the healthier part too. He says of lonely people that their brain functioning declines sooner. They live shorter lives than people who are not lonely. They learn that people in unhappy relationships have their physical pain magnified by their emotional pain.

People in happy relationships are in physical pain because they're well into their eighties at the end of the study, but their mood stayed the same. Their physical pain wasn't that big of a deal because, emotionally, they were happy. So what does that mean for us? What does that mean for our New Year's resolutions? What does that mean as we look back on things that we wanna change in the new year?

For some people, that could mean spending more time with fewer people. And by that, I mean stop spreading yourself so thin. Stop trying to be best friends with everyone and actually be best friends with a few people. You can't make new old friends. There are things that my friends know about me only because we've been friends for 10 years, or in some cases, 20 years.

There are things that they know that they just wouldn't know if we've been friends for 6 months or a year. Some of those things are good. Some of those things are bad. But all of those things are special. All of those things are important.

My dad has had the same best friends for 40, in some cases, 50 years. And they can be together for about 8 seconds before the whole thing devolves into fits of laughter. It's really quite fun to watch. So maybe in the new year, think about investing in relationships. Call your friends and schedule a a at least once a year reunion.

Don't let the good things slip away. I'm gonna close out this episode a little bit differently. I'm gonna play some more from that TED Talk, and then I'm gonna play my favorite New Year's song ever. It's called This Love Won't Break Your Heart by Annalise Emmerich. See you in 2016.

I'd like to close with a quote from Mark Twain. More than a century ago, he was looking back on his life and he wrote this. There isn't time so brief is life, for bickerings, apologies, heart burnings, callings to account. There is only time for loving and but an instant, so to speak, for that. The good life is built with good relationships.

2 minutes till it's midnight. We've been drinking since the sun went down. Everyone's been kissing, throwing love around. Somebody shout, change is coming. You just smile and drink your beer.

Everywhere the air's a humming, It's all of us right here. And we say, should all acquaintance be for god? I'll love you till the day I die. Should all acquaintance be for god? Will you kiss me in the morning light?

Oh, flames and broken hearts and nights under the stars. One by 1, we fall asleep wrapped in each other's arms, and we dream Should all acquaintances be forgotten? I love you till the day I die. Should all the acquaintance be for God? Will you kiss me in the morning light?

If you will only give it up because here we are. This is a kind of love that doesn't break your heart. If you were lonely, give it up because here we are. This is the kind of love that doesn't break your heart. If you will only give it up, die.

Should all the acquaintance be for God? Will you kiss me in the morning light?