Bronnie Ware has taken on a variety of jobs in her professional life – she worked in a hospital for a while as a nurse, and inspired by these experiences, she decided to become a writer and motivational speaker. Based on stories heard from patients, she wrote her first book.
It started with a blog
The idea for “The Top Five Regrets of the Dying – A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing” was born in 2009 as a blog. According to “The Guardian”, the post in which the author listed the title 5 things that patients most often regretted before death was shared and read by over 8 million people. The book took its official shape in 2012 and was translated into 32 languages.
The author does not keep the ranking in . According to Bronnie Ware, when people feel their death is imminent, the most common regrets they express are:
- I wish I had the courage to live the life I want, for myself, and not the life others expected of me.
- I’m sorry I didn’t work hard enough.
- I wish I had the courage to confess my feelings.
- I would like to keep in touch with my friends.
- I wish I had allowed myself to be happier.
The second of these positions is most often mentioned in the case of men, but it was the collective statements of both sexes that allowed the first of the complaints to gain the title of leader.
It was the most common regret. When people realize their lives are coming to an end and look back, it is easy to see how many of their dreams have not come true. Most people didn’t even respect half of them, and they had to die knowing that it was because of the choices they made or didn’t make. Health brings freedom, which many realize only when they lose it.
– said the author.
The words of the writer have been confirmed by research
The former nurse’s experience inspired a 2018 study by Shai Davidai and Thomas Gilovich. Their results were very similar, and the conclusions were similar.
Bronnie Ware, a nurse, has collected the most common regrets expressed by patients approaching the end of their lives. While her observations are anecdotal, they are consistent with our hypothesis.
– they wrote in the work “The ideal road not taken: The self-discrepancies involved in people’s most enduring regrets”. It has been shown that when people talk about what they regret, they do not point to specific behaviors, extreme activities (such as not deciding to jump with a parachute), intimate or professional life. They are more likely to focus on vague “ideals” – for example, they blame themselves for failing to live up to their goals or reach their full potential.
Ware’s book was also published in Poland under the title “What the Dying Regret Most”. It is available in well-known online bookstores. After giving birth to her first child at the age of 45, she released two more books – a follow-up to 2014’s Your Year For Change: 52 Reflections For Regret-Free Living and Bloom: A Tale of Courage, Surrender, and Breaking Through Upper Limits” from 2017.
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
