Cheery stuff I know, but we live in an age where death and sickness is kept at a distance. In ages past when death was more common place we learnt how to live with it. Think of all those Romantic poets or the Bronte sisters for example.
Anne, Emily and Charlotte Bronte
Yet, despite death and illness being kept away and sterilised on a personal level, we also live in an age where we grow up with the perennial sword of Damocles hanging over our head. Whether that is nuclear war, climate change or deadly pathogens; we live in a time of existential threats – real or imagined. For many the threat feels very real and promotes an anxious society which, helpfully for the powers that be, is also easier to control.
Instead let us learn from those at the end of their life and the wisdom they can impart to us.
Five Top Regrets of the Dying
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’d stayed in touch with my friends.
I wish that I had let myself be happier.
I’m sure at least one of these will resonate with you, as it did me.
I think it reflects a society, not of free individuals, but one of wage slaves. A society that puts pressure on people to conform and live a life based on power, control, separation, and ultimately one where relationships are founded upon exploitation.
Separation I note here is not just from friends and family but finally from yourself. Minimising our emotions and artistic side in order to make a living.
In relation to happiness and allowing yourself to be happy, this speaks to me of clinging to a miserable state of being. However, true happiness can be found in having meaning and purpose in life. I think that is up to all of us to impart our own sense of meaning and purpose to ourselves.
My thanks for this list to the work of Bonnie Ware an Aussie palliative nurse who collected these thoughts of her dying patients.