Palliative care nurse-turned-author Bronnie Ware wrote a book about the regrets of the dying (titled the five regrets of the dying). She had worked in the palliative care area for many years and collected the tales her entire career. It appears that there are some common themes.

I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me
I wish I hadn’t worked so hard
I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings
I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends
I wish I had let myself be happier.

It is quite a modern idea to be happy. You may not know that, but it is. I like being happy so I read that list with great interest. How are you going with it? I speak with people who have definitely lived their lives along these lines too. What a shame to get to the end, or near it, and have regrets at all I reckon. Unless of course you always wanted to rob a bank or something similar of course.

But it’s one thing to think it, and its entirely another to put yourself in a position to make a tangible difference to your own life, because for most of us, it really isn’t our life at all is it? We share it, with family, with people who rely on us, with our neighbours, our children and our work-mates and probably even our club mates or something similar.

That having been said. Here is a news flash, we are all going to die. It’s not a pleasant thought for sure, but if you follow my thinking, that’s it, it’s all over red rover, you only get one crack at it. So I reckon you should give it a red-hot go. Try to have a few less regrets and try to leave the world or bits of it, better off for your time spent here.