According to an article I read yesterday in The Lady magazine I understand that one of people’s biggest deathbed regrets is working too hard. The other top five were: to have had the courage to live a life true to oneself rather than other’s expectations; to have expressed one’s feelings more; to have stayed in touch with friends better; and to have let oneself be happier by relinquishing old patterns.
This has all been observed by a palliative nurse who recorded her dying patients’ words and has written a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying………which probably if you are looking for something to cheer and entertain you then I would guess this is not the book for you.
However it did make me think what current people’s regrets will be as we are obviously living in different times……..could it be ‘having to work too hard to make a living’ or even ‘wishing that you had been able to have a job in order to live’.
One of my regrets will be ‘choosing dodgy boyfriends, until I met my husband of course, since most of them were either unsuitable, shifty, s***s, or simply didn’t love me enough or loved some other girl more.

Staying in touch won’t be an issue as with modern communications we have no excuse, but I understand the sentiments behind this regret. Expressing one’s feelings is definitely more out in the open now than it has ever been. I am not sure my parents ever told me they loved me but we all seem to do this so much more now. My regret will be that I didn’t tell the people I dislike that I did and why I felt this way!
All the other top five regrets work for me so, since I am not about to die (hopefully), maybe this book has woken me up to saying let’s do something about it now whilst I am able to so that I can make sure I don’t lie on my deathbed uttering these regrets. I can’t do anything about my choice of boyfriends but I did learn from my mistakes and chose the right one in the end. However I would like to add one or two: I should have moved the family to the country sooner as life here is definitely more conducive to our health and happiness. Oh and, I should have eaten more chocolate!

By the time I die I hope I won’t be able to remember the bad bits of life, I hope that they will be like child birth, very painful at the time but soon forgotten so that I only remember the good times and the things I have done right.
‘Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today’ James Dean.
Let us know your possible regrets in the comments section below. We love to hear from you all.