The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying are stark lessons, but we must remember them daily

Photo by Matthew Henry

Bryan Johnson, an American entrepreneur and venture capitalist born in 1977, aspires to live until he’s 150 years old — if not forever. Johnson, who founded Braintree, which later acquired the payment processor Venmo, was subsequently acquired by PayPal for $800 million, and he walked away with $300 million. In 2021, Bryan launched “Project Blueprint,” a life-extension initiative that inspired the 2025 Netflix documentary “Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever.”

Bryan spends $2 million each year on his quest to achieve immortality. Yes, you heard that correctly — that’s one expensive gym membership. One of his latest biohacks involved injecting fat from a donor into his face, aptly named “Project Baby Face.”

Johnson isn’t the only millionaire or billionaire who is considering the next 100 years and planning to be part of them. Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Peter Thiel, formerly of PayPal, and Mark Zuckerberg of Meta invest heavily in longevity research and development.

However, as of this article, the richest man in the world (on paper), Elon Musk, doesn’t believe the old should remain for too long. In an interview, Musk stated: “For me, I certainly would like to maintain my health for a longer period, but I’m not afraid of dying. I think it will come as a relief.” More on that comment later, but Musk also said: “The truth is, most people don’t change their minds. They just die. So if they don’t die, we will be stuck with old ideas, and society won’t advance.”

Coming from a long career in the health and fitness industry, I am very interested in increasing my lifespan, including my health span. Although I’m not a tech billionaire and have a limited health budget, I certainly have all of the basic tools and use them daily.

I enjoyed reading David A. Sinclair’s book “Lifespan: Why We Age and Why We Don’t Have To.” Sinclair is an acclaimed scientist from Harvard Medical School and a longevity expert. As you can probably infer from the subtitle of his book, he believes it would be wonderful if we could all live significantly longer.

I seem to side with Musk in this debate, as the argument against living to be 150 years old might seem a bit counterintuitive — who wouldn’t want to live longer in good health? Nevertheless, my intuition warns me about the potential negative impact on society if the elderly continue to age indefinitely. We can observe that living things die to make way for the new, but perhaps we could be an exception?

After all, as professor and author Yuval Noah Harari would say, we are becoming the new “Techno-Gods” of the planet, soon to have robots with superior intelligence ready to serve us while we all (or some of us) become centenarians. Either that or the same robots will send us to the matrix, where we can live to our hearts’ content. Beyond sarcasm, I am cautiously conservative, knowing that we should always consider not breaking what has been well-established.

Another great book I’ve read several times is “The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself” by Michael Singer. One of my favourite quotes from this book is: “No person or situation could ever teach you as much as death has to teach you.”

This raises a thought-provoking question: why do many of us wish to live forever? Is there a reason we believe we need more years? What do we hope to achieve if we gain another 50+ years beyond our expectations?

I’d love to live well beyond 100 years if I have good health. Most of us wouldn’t mind spending another decade or two enjoying this beautiful experience we call life and all the wonderful people we consider friends and family within it. Musk is the exception, saying that death would be a relief. But we must ask ourselves: What is the difference between us and him (aside from the suspicion that he might be an alien)?

For many of us, there is a deeper, more sublime reason we desire to live longer.

Author Bonnie Ware wrote one of the most famous books in its genre, “The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying,” which she created as a memoir reflecting her conversations with people on their deathbed while working in Australia as a palliative caregiver.

This is what these people frequently told her:

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 hadn’t worked 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 I had let myself be happier”

A 2018 study by Davidai, Shai; Gilovich, and Thomas, reached similar conclusions. It found that people were more likely to express “ideal-related regrets,” such as failing to follow their dreams and live up to their full potential.

This information surprised me, as I assumed the regrets would concentrate more on working too much and not spending enough time with loved ones. As you can see, these were indeed on the list, but what stood out to me is that most people regret what they didn’t express.

As you might expect, expression is a vital aspect of human existence. When we suppress our aspirations, emotions, beliefs, and thoughts, we experience regret as we lie on our deathbeds, provided we have notice, reflecting on a life that many of us believe was not lived to its fullest potential.

Let’s agree that everything is energy, and our emotions and thoughts are also energetic. We can observe the inevitable struggle when one attempts to suppress these thoughts and feelings to fit in, make others happy, and avoid causing conflict. I refer to this as being uncomfortably comfortable — a state that lacks motivation and hope yet at least allows you to avoid rocking the boat.

If we examine the number one regret, “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me,” a couple of points stand out. First, the word courage appears here, as well as in the third most common regret, “I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.” Therefore, we can conclude that these individuals had fears they didn’t confront but wish they had.

We know that the opposite of courage is fear, and the opposite of expression is suppression. This is what we can learn from the regrets of the dying: They failed to face their fears courageously, suppressed their true desires, and led a life with regrets. Unfortunately, they realized this when it was too late.

Carl Jung, the renowned psychiatrist of the 19th century, devoted much of his work to understanding the unconscious mind. Jung believed that this part of our psyche holds the aspects of ourselves that we repress, whether we consider them evil, socially unacceptable, harmful to others, or detrimental to our health.

It is where we store our shame and guilt about what we shouldn’t have done — or should have done. He referred to this aspect of our nature as the “shadow,” composed primarily of the negative elements of our personality that we wish to conceal from others.

However, many people are unaware that the shadow also encompasses our repressed aspirations and the adventurous endeavours we were too afraid to pursue. If we were to summon the courage to express these facets of our nature, we might not receive support from our social circle; they could view it as selfish of us to chase our dreams, or perhaps we consider them impractical or too risky, fearing failure and ridicule. Keeping those elements locked away seems easier so they never see the light of day.

Carl Jung stated: “If it has been believed until now that the human shadow was the source of evil, it can now be determined upon closer investigation that the unconscious man — his shadow — does not consist solely of morally reprehensible tendencies; it also displays a number of positive qualities, such as normal instincts, appropriate reactions, realistic insights, and creative impulses, etc.” [CW9 paras 422 & 423].

We can repress those darker aspects of our nature, which we might justify. However, even those aspects need integration and the purging of shame. Additionally, we may suppress what could enable us to reach our full potential — this is where regret begins and doesn’t end.

This awareness of self could have been realized while there was still time; hence, the vital importance of self-discovery to avoid such a painful end. I will undoubtedly have regrets when it’s time to go, but I am committed to living the rest of my life as fully awake as possible. I aim to build on my conscious awareness through internal investigation, questioning my thoughts and beliefs and those of others, and live an imperfect life with repentance — but without significant regrets.

The only way to achieve this is through the complex, painful, and sometimes shameful work of confronting, sitting with, and challenging my fears. In contrast, staying busy, being busy, delaying, and diverting my attention are all too easy traps to fall into. I want to avoid self-sabotage, as I’ve seen my shadow projected onto others, causing them to feel my pain of not living up to my potential.

Knowledge and acceptance of oneself, or as Jung referred to this process, individuation, is our calling; it is the meaning of life. Self-exploration is a journey that no one should overlook if they wish to have fewer regrets. Delving in and uncovering your truth, piece by piece is the call to adventure that transforms everyone into a hero — a person who answered the call and bravely faced their fears to make the necessary changes for a harmonious life.

The regrets of the dying are a stark lesson, but we need to remember it daily.

FRUITION—A Transformative Journey of Self-Discovery

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