A palliative care worker who spent nearly a decade supporting people in their final weeks has shared the profound and heartbreaking regrets they most commonly expressed.
The Five Heartfelt Regrets
Bronnie Ware, an author and former palliative carer, dedicated eight years to looking after terminally ill patients, often in their own homes for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives. Speaking on Dr Rangan Chatterjee's Feel Better, Live More podcast, she revealed the clear patterns of reflection that emerged as people faced their own mortality.
Ware, who wrote the book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, listed the recurring themes in order of frequency. "The most common regret was that I wish I'd lived a life true to myself, not the life that other people expected of me," she stated.
The second most frequent lament was "I wish I hadn't worked so hard." This was followed by the wish for more courage to express feelings, the desire to have stayed in touch with friends, and finally, the regret of not allowing oneself to be happier.
A Universal Wish for Authenticity
On her personal website, Ware explored the top regret in greater depth. She observed that when people realise their life is ending and look back with clarity, they easily see how many dreams went unfulfilled.
"Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made," she wrote. She emphasised the critical importance of trying to honour some dreams along life's journey, warning that once health is lost, it is too late. "Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it," Ware noted.
She cautioned against the common assumption of a peaceful, healthy death at an old age, stating this is not the reality for most.
The High Cost of Overwork
The regret surrounding work held particular poignancy and showed a stark gender-based pattern. "This came from every male patient that I nursed," Ware said of the wish to have not worked so hard. "They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship."
While women from older generations also voiced this regret, they were less often the primary breadwinners. Ware concluded that all the men she cared for "deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence."
Her insights, gathered between 2018 and 2026, serve as a powerful reminder of what truly matters at the end of life, urging the living to evaluate their own choices and priorities before it's too late.
