5 Of the Most Common Deathbed Regrets
Key Takeaways
Studies reveal recurring themes in deathbed regrets, emphasizing the importance of prioritizing relationships, expressing love, living authentically, and taking care of yourself.
Understanding these regrets offers valuable insights for living a more fulfilling life, encouraging us to focus on what truly matters in the face of our own mortality.
By prioritizing loved ones, expressing our feelings, pursuing our passions, and making healthy choices, we can minimize the potential for similar regrets in our own final moments.
Deathbed regrets are one of the saddest parts of seeing someone pass away. Obviously, if you are with a loved one in their final moments, you’re going to grieve the loss, but their final words give you a great insight into their lives.
It’s normal for people to share their deepest regrets in the waning moments of their lives, and those regrets can serve as powerful lessons for those who are left to cherish their memories.
Over the years, surveys have been conducted among those who are often with people in their last moments. This includes hospice workers, healthcare professionals, religious leaders, and others.
One of the most remarkable things about these studies is that there are some regrets that are common among dying people. People who have never met one another and live in completely different parts of the world often share the same, universal regrets.
Taking a look at these deathbed regrets not only gives us a greater understanding of how people think and feel in their final moments, but also provides us with some tips for how we can avoid similar feelings.
“I Wish I Hadn’t Spent So Much Time Working.”
According to James Pickering, a long-time hospice nurse, regrets about how much time people spent working was more common among men. Regardless of your gender, you probably spend a good portion of your week trying to make money.
Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with having a good work ethic, and we all need money to survive.
However, when people get to the end of their lives, they often realize that the extra hours that they poured into their job didn’t really seem worth it when they were getting closer to the end.
In recent years, there has been a greater emphasis placed on the fact that mental health matters and about achieving a good work-life balance. That doesn’t mean that we don’t still pour so much of ourselves into our careers that we neglect other important relationships.
If you’re like most people, you work to earn an income that allows you to live. Make sure that you’re taking the time to nurture the relationships in your lives and make time for the things that you enjoy.
When life is over, it won’t matter how far you climbed up the corporate ladder and how much money you had in the bank.
“I Wish I Had Been More Loving.”
It’s common for people to struggle to show affection. Some people simply aren’t good at sharing their inner emotions, including those that let others know how important they are to you. Maybe you know how to control your emotions but not express them.
Unfortunately, it’s normal for people to realize this personality trait when it’s too late.
When faced with the stark reality of death, people often think about the times they didn’t tell someone they loved them, didn’t share a hug, or simply weren’t present, even when they were in the same room as the people who mattered the most to them.
Avoiding this regret may take some work, as it might mean that you have to push yourself out of your comfort zone.
Maybe you’re just not good at saying, “I love you,” when someone is leaving your home.
Maybe you don’t always feel like giving someone a hug is appropriate.
Take the risk. Share your heartfelt emotions with friends and family members. You don’t want to come to the end of your life and wonder if the people you loved knew how you felt about them and how important they were to you.
“I Wish I Had Been a Better Spouse/Sibling/Child/Friend.”
On the surface, it may seem like this regret is the same as the one we just discussed, but this one goes beyond showing appreciation and love for the people in your life. It involves putting your love for those people into action.
It’s easy to let familiarity breed complacency. That’s often why we don’t pick up the telephone to call that friend who you haven’t heard from in a week or two.
It’s why we’re suddenly too busy on weekends to do something with parents or siblings. We’re so used to these people being part of our lives that we often take them for granted.
When people get to the end of their lives, they often regret those times when they didn’t take the time to spend with their parents, siblings, or friends.
When was the last time that you just went to your parent’s house to spend an afternoon with them?
Can you recall the last time that you met your brother or sister for lunch?
Have you been meaning to invite your friends over for a cookout but just keep putting it off in hopes that next weekend won’t be as busy?
If you’re putting off being the best friend, sibling, child, or parent that you can be, take the time for the people you love the most and make memories that they can cherish after you’re gone.
“I Wish I Had Been True to Myself.”
Many people spend their entire lives trying to live up to the expectations that others have for them.
While there’s nothing wrong with wanting to make the people in your life happy, and few things are as rewarding as knowing that the people you love the most are proud of you.
However, it’s easy to fall into the trap of being a people-pleaser, often to your own detriment.
We’ve talked a lot about the importance of showing love and appreciation to the people in your life. This doesn’t mean that you don’t also pursue your own goals and interests. It doesn’t mean that you completely give up on who you are because you want to make other people happy.
No one wants to get to the end of their lives and realize that they didn’t chase their dreams.
No one wants to reflect back over their life in their final days and think about how they weren’t true to themselves. You can be who you are without neglecting others, and it’s an important part of living up to your full potential.
There is a lot of truth behind the quote, to thine own self be true.
“I Wish I Had Taken Better Care of Myself”
“If I had known I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself.”
This quote has been attributed to everyone from American composer, Eubie Blake to the legendary Mickey Mantle. However, it’s believed that this quote was truly the brainchild of a man named Billy Noonan, an editorial journalist from Minneapolis.
While attending a dinner with other journalists, most of whom were praising the work and legacy of the 70-year-old Noonan, he reportedly told them if he’d thought he’d live as long as he did, he would have taken better care of himself.
Unfortunately, this is a common regret among the dying, especially those who are facing the consequences of their own poor health choices.
While this certainly shouldn’t be taken as an insinuation that those people have caused their own demise, the fact remains that people often look back at their poor health choices when they’re facing the reality of death.
Eventually, we’re all going to be faced with our own mortality. However, that doesn’t mean that we can’t make decisions today that can lengthen our lives.
The decisions you make today can not only help you delay the inevitable, but they can also help you face death without any regrets about how you treated your body along the way.