When I was very young my grandfather would lift me onto his lap, he would point out the cuts, bruises and scrapes on my knees and ask where I got each one. I would then explain what game or fun exploit had generated these worldly scars.
Recently this childhood reminiscence came to me when reading the work of Bronnie Ware. Bronnie worked for many years with hospice patients and recently published a thought provoking work titled, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.

Here they are:
1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

I picture tabulating regrets in my dying hours as a similar process to checking off the scars on my four year old limbs. I was not willing to give up even one of those booboos for a more placid or less adventurous childhood. In adulthood too, if we are engaged in life, we will take some “bumps” along the way and a few will not be erased by time. I assume I will carry repentant scars to the grave just as I carry the pebble under the skin on my forehead, the cost of a riotous adventure on a swing (or maybe my sister pushed me).

Sadly, I have to admit that I have already started to count some on the list above as my regrets.

1. Do I wish I had followed my dreams more and worried less about what others expected?
I get a pass on this one because I have been quite diligent in pursuing what dreams came up sometimes without a nod to common sense, but that is another kind of regret.

2. Do I wish I had spent less time at the office?
Sure I do. My children are now in their 30s and as I sometimes wait patiently, or not so patiently, for a visit or a call, even a text, I cannot imagine how I ever voluntarily missed a moment of their lives.

3. I can definitely say I wished I had expressed my feelings more.
At sixty I am just learning that my feelings don’t need to right, checked out by some universal standard or OK’d by anyone else. They have worth just because they are my feelings…never too old to learn, forget that old dog saying.

4. Do I wish I had given friendship a greater priority in my life?
Of course, now I find myself with few old friends and therefore without the insights of people who have shared the stages of my life. Old friends cannot be created, only the years of tending the relationships will cultivate them.

5. Have I wanted to be happier in this life?
Well who would turn down more happiness? I have not always been as happy as I would have liked. I have not laughed as many times as the smile lines on my face would suggest. But I question if we chose happiness or more importantly do we chose its opposite? I don’t think anyone chooses to be unhappy and yet, unhappy happens. In the circumstances of living fully both joy and sadness will come and I believe that both are required to experience each other. How would I know happy without sad?

If we are able to predict what we will regret in our last moments of life then why do we not change our lives to forestall those regrets?
In my professional coaching practice I have observed that people get stuck in self defeating patterns of thinking and action for example; guilt, fear, working long hours, isolation from meaningful relationships or hiding feelings. Patterns can be broken and when they are change occurs.

 First we need to observe the patterns of behavior and perspective with which we operate
 Second we must come to understand the effect of this patterned thinking on our lives
 Then we can make the conscious effort to change just one thing and viola… the chain of habit is broken and the crack that lets the light in is formed
 Then practice makes perfect. This process of breaking from the old pattern and forming the new takes frequent practice
 After each practice session the result must be observed so it becomes the learning
Over time the value of the new becomes more clear and then eventually we have a new pattern of behavior. Someday the new behavior may need to be changed also because it is not the patterns themselves that are bad but the fact that some have outlived their usefulness or appropriateness in our lives.

This brings me to what I see as the value of a book like The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.
The perspective of the dying can never be the full perspective of those who do not face their imminent demise. That end of life perspective is as unique as the way a child views life.
However regrets that are noted when it is too late to change anything, can be literally food for thought for others. Those of us with a few years left can use these pre death insights to evaluate how we are doing today. Maybe this alternative view is just what we need to make the changes that could nourish the rest of our life.
It is possible that if you examine how you are currently living you too may find that you have planted the seeds of some of the 5 regrets listed above. If so, consider beginning the process of breaking the patterns which no longer serve your life.
Personally, I am still hoping for another 30 years or so. My mother lived to be 92 and my father 96 and if it be the will of my higher power so will I see such a ripe old age.
I do not really know what final regrets I will have with my last breathes but I am sure I will have some. I am greedy and I want a full serving from this life and I can’t imagine I can get out that type of living without a few skinned knees or a few more embedded pebbles under my thin skin.

What do you anticipate as your final regrets and what are you willing to do about it now?