I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself

In her book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, Bronnie Ware writes about the most common regrets expressed to her by the terminally ill people she met as a palliative carer.

Regret #1: I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

“It is a pity that being who you truly are requires so much courage. But it does. It takes enormous courage at times. Being who you are, whoever that is, sometimes cannot even be articulated at first, not even to yourself. All you know is there is a yearning within that is not being fulfilled by the life you are currently living. Having to explain this to others, who have not walked in your shoes, may just leave you questioning yourself even further.

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The things you often think you need are sometimes the things that keep you trapped in an unfulfilled life. Simplicity is the key to changing this, that and letting go of the need for validation through ownership or through other’s expectations of you. Taking risks also requires courage. But you cannot control everything. Staying in a seemingly secure environment does not guarantee that life’s lessons will pass you by unnoticed. They can still come out of the blue, when you least expect them. So can life’s rewards though, for those with courage to honour their hearts. The clock ticks for every one of us. It is your own choice how you spend your remaining days.”