At the end of your life, what will you regret?

Most people think about that question and find peace is not having an answer.

But a woman named Bronnie Ware wanted answers, so she documented her experiences as a caregiver and identified the five most common regression expressed by her dying patients.

Today, I want to just share each of them because it has really given me a permission slip to approach life and my creativity in a new light.

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

This was the biggest regret and I understand why. Our life is our own. And so we must try our hardest to live a life that’s true.

That’s why I believe the art that matters the most is the art only you can make.

The most honest.

Oftentimes what holds us back from our creative potential is the friction we feel from trying to make art that’s for an imagined audience.

Parents. Followers. Gatekeepers.

What’s the thing you’d make if no one you knew would ever see it?

Start there.

If we don’t start making decisions that align with our truth, at the end of this journey called life, we’ll look up and see the person we could have become standing next to the person we actually are.

And feel the weight of that distance in our chest.

Regret #2: I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

I can’t believe I’m saying this…but don’t work so hard.

I know it’s counterintuitive for creatives, but real.

Output isn’t the same as creation.

Oftentimes the strangest and most original ideas come from walks, boredom, sleep, conversations, daydreaming.

We have to protect unstructured time the way we protect studio time.

Work is seductive because it gives you metrics, identity, and a reason to ignore everything else.

But as obsessive as our passions feel, we need balance.

The core realization I’ve come to is that humans will trade their actual lives for the story of a life (productive, responsible, important) and only notice the trade when it’s irreversible.

Regret #3: I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

Express your feelings.

This is a core pillar of existence.

Art that hides what the artist actually feels is inherently mediocre.

The pieces that move people are the ones where someone risked being seen.

Admitting envy, grief, desire, confusion, tenderness.

Whatever feels too much is probably the part worth keeping.

If you love someone, tell them.

If you feel like crying, let it out.

If you feel hurt, speak up.

Unexpressed emotion metabolizes into states of being. Resentment. Anxiety. Depression. Distance.

The dying regret holding back because they can finally see how much of their lives was spent managing the consequences of things they never said.

Regret #4: I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

This one is less about creativity and just raw life advice.

To me, it’s about how irreplaceable life-long witnesses are.

What I mean by that is friends from earlier in life aren’t just companions. They’re the only people who hold evidence of who you were.

When they’re gone, entire versions of you disappear with them.

The dying realize that being known across time is one of the few things that makes a human life feel coherent rather than a series of disconnected performances.

Regret #5: I wish I had let myself be happier.

I know this was the least mentioned regret, but it’s soooo important.

We have to let ourselves be happier.

Suffering doesn’t make better art, it just makes more suffering.

The romantic myth of the tortured artist has cost an enormous amount of work that never got made because the maker was too depleted to make it.

Joy, play, and ease are creative fuel. Lean into them.

And I find that they said “let” myself be happier kind of strange. Essentially it frames happiness as a choice.

We tend to put off being happy. Something we’ll feel when once conditions are right, once we’ve earned it, once the threats are handled.

The lesson I pulled from this is that the conditions are never going to be right.

Today I choose happiness. And I will consciously strive to choose it more and more.

I find all five of these lessons deeply impactful.

They all remind me that this life is our greatest masterpiece.

Everyday when we wake up we are putting pen to paper and writing our story in realtime.

Humans live almost entirely inside these stories about their lives.

Stories about who they should be. What they’re waiting for. What they’ll become later. Stories so immersive they mistake them for reality.

In the face of death, those people were finally able to step outside the story.

Right now, as you read this, we're both at a pivotal point in our story.

There are parts of my own life I can already feel myself postponing.

But we've been given a message from the future telling us exactly what we need to do to change the course of our story and live a full life.

The breath in our lungs tells me we're not too late to embrace these lessons.

It’s not too late to live in your truth.

What will your next chapter be?

Stay creative,

Way Walker