THE LESSONS WE LEARN FROM BRONNIE WARE

Bronnie Ware is a former Palliative Carer who’s experience looking after the dying inspired a career as a songwriter, motivational speaker and author of 3 books. Her first and most famous book ‘The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing’ reflects on the most common deathbed regrets she heard from her patients in their final hours.

Picture yourself at the end of your life looking back… How will you have wanted to spend your years? What experiences will you wish you would have had? How will you want people to remember you? Then ask yourself: does what you're doing now, today, reflect those values?

It is so easy to push chasing our dreams back until tomorrow, or tell ourselves we will make those important life changes another day. I myself have stayed in jobs, relationships and living situations that made me miserable for far longer than I should have, and more painfully I have missed out on important experiences due to fear and the pressure of other people’s expectations.

We are so quick to neglect our own happiness, particularly when we are young and seemingly have our whole lives ahead of us. It can be hard to imagine a time that we will be old & frail and these choices (inaction is a choice) will come back to haunt us, but Bronnie reminds us that this neglect comes at a cost. And that cost, as she has seen so painfully first hand, is the bitter misery of regret in our final days when it is all too late. Oh it’s terribly morbid, I know, but a beautiful memoir to Bronnie’s work and the people she tended to in their final moments. Bronnie has ensured her patients death has not been in vein by gracefully transforming their final words of remorse into into valuable lessons that may well give us the courage to tell someone we love them, leave that awful job or go on that adventure we have always dreamt of…

"I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me"

Something I’m sure we can all relate to is the pressure of prioritising what we “should” do over what makes us truly happy. When we let other people’s opinions steer our life, we are choosing their happiness over ours, and in doing so we deprive ourselves of true joy and fulfilment. Bronnie’s patients reflected on the “sensible” paths they took, and mourn the life they would have lived had they followed their instincts, a life they will now never know. Ideally, when we set out to follow our dreams we will have the support and love of those around us, but with or without it – living someone else’s ideas for you will only lead to pain and bitterness. Choosing an unconventional path can be intimidating, but nothing can be as painful as the bitter price of regret that Bronnie's patients paid later in life.

"I wish I hadn't worked so hard"

We are taught that the harder we work, the further we will go and the happier we will become… but we rarely stop to consider the cost this can come at. While hard work is great (and even very good for us), it can be hard to find a healthy work-life balance. We are all familiar with the dangers of hustle culture where having 4 hours sleep and making yourself physically unwell with stress is a source of admiration. Bronnie reflects on the people who wished they could get back the time they missed watching their children grow, and undo the strain that all the hours in the office put on their relationships. Suddenly the time dedicated climbing the career ladder comes at a cost, particularly when that job does not bring you fulfilment (see point 1). Remember – don’t give your soul to a company that will replace you tomorrow if you dropped dead. If a job (or anything for that matter) is costing you your mental health, it is too expensive. It’s important to find a balance and to recognise when work is cutting into your personal life too much. Time is currency. 50 years from now, will it be worth it?

"I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings"

How many times have we heard people say “If you love someone tell them now before it’s too late”. When it comes to family and friends, we sometimes neglect to reach out and tell them how much they mean to us (perhaps because it feels “soppy” or we “don’t have time”), and when it comes to romantic relationships, perhaps it’s fear that’s holding us back. As hard as it seems in the moment – remember there will come a day that you no longer have the privilege to tell people how you feel, as Bronnie saw too often, so do it today. Rejection is better than never knowing how your life could have turned out differently, or how someone else felt. Keep that in mind the next time you hesitate.

"I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends"

Similarly to the point above, this is about making time for the people who are important to us. Bronnie came across so many people who were pained by the loss of the people they let slip away from them when life got in the way. It is so easy to do, and all too often we don’t realise it’s happening until it’s too late. No matter how busy life gets… there is always time to send a text before bed, ring someone on your commute to work, or arrange a dinner just once a month.

"I wish that I had let myself be happier"

This is a general point that beautifully (and tragically) summarises all of the above points… we prioritise work commitments, sensible choices and our comfort zones over happiness, only to later regret it. Of course, no one can be happy every day, it’s part of the human nature to experience the entire spectrum of emotions, but it’s your reponsability to yourself to make your life as happy, fulfilling and authentic as possible, regardless of outside opinions. Hindsight is a wonderful, painful thing... let the lessons of those that have come before is teach us what’s truly important in life and inspire us to make better choices for ourselves. Starting today.

The common theme here is, as wise people always tell us, it’s the things we don’t do in life that we regret. What people think about in their final moments isn’t the posessions or promotions they obtained during their short time on earth, it’s the connections made and lost, the love and happiness had and missed. Nobody likes to think about death, but sometimes taking drastic measures to gain some perspective of the decisions and priorities you are making today is exactly what it takes to make real change. Death is coming for us all, so next time a scary opportunity comes up, or you have another bad day at a soul-sucking job, ask yourself how you wanted to be remembered when you’re gone, and what you want your life to look like when you’re reflecting back.