At the end of your life, will you deeply regret taking the sure and safe path instead of the road less traveled?
Will you live to regret it if you don’t follow your dream of being an artist? At the end of your life, will you deeply regret taking the sure and safe path instead of the road less traveled?
These are challenging questions, I admit. And you may or may not have given questions as serious as these much consideration. But these are issues that should be confronted by adults of any age.
They were issues that confronted Bronnie Ware. After too many years of unfulfilling work, Bronnie began searching for a job with heart. Despite having no formal qualifications or experience, she found herself working in palliative care.
Over the years she spent tending to the needs of those who were dying, Bronnie’s life was transformed.
Later, she wrote an Internet blog about the most common regrets expressed to her by the people she had cared for. The article and book, also called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, gained so much momentum that it was read by more than three million people around the globe in its first year.
The book outlines the top 5 regrets expressed by her dying patients.
What was the number one regret?
“I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”
“This was the most common regret of all. When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honored even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made. Health brings a freedom very few realize, until they no longer have it.”
Carl Jung once wrote that most of his patients knew the greater truths concerning their lives, but did not live them. And he wrote of these patients that, “Anyone who takes the sure road is as good as dead.”
Given this all-too-human failing, I wonder how many artists are out there in the world masquerading as doctors, lawyers or stockbrokers? And I wonder if it is this lifelong masquerade that leads some people to end up regretting the life choices that they made?