It is later than you think
Bronnie Ware was an Australian nurse working in palliative care. For several years she recorded conversations with people in their last 12 weeks of life.
Different people, diverse life stories and pretty the same answers:
1. I wish I’d had the courage to live the life true to myself, not the life others expected of me
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard
3. I wish I had the courage to express my feelings
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends
5. I wish I had let myself to be happier
I bet you have heard about that research before. You maybe even read the most common regrets of people during their last days.
And?
Did their words change anything for you personally? Did you learn anything?
I know, I know. We are not it the same position, right? We have our important limitations and of course we have many years of life in front of us.
How do you know?
We take our future for granted. But it is not.
Behind every decision we make, there is a choice. The choice that we make or do not make. As long as we are healthy, the number of choices is relatively unlimited. The problem is that we never know how much time we have left. And even if we had hundred years, why to waste them on half-living?
We have a fortunate and unusual gift of choice about what we want to do with our life. And we tend to spend most of it looking for excuses. We do not have enough time, money, courage, determination or we think that somebody or something limits us. And time goes on. Tick tack, tick tack. Never stops. Is there any deadline, age or achievement that would be a signal to start truly enjoying our lives? What about now?
What would be the first thing that you did tomorrow if you had no fear at all?
Now, do it! There is no time to waste, it is later than you think.