If you were to die today, what would you most regret? I do not find this a morbid question but a healthy self-examination with enormous ramifications for living fully in the present moment.

Bronnie Ware, an Australian nurse who worked in palliative care for several years, recorded the dying “epiphanies” of her patients in the last three months of their lives. Her blog, “Inspiration and Chai,” generated so much interest that she put her observations into a book entitled The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.

“When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently,” Ware writes, “common themes surfaced again and again.” As Susan Steiner wrote in The Guardian, “There was no mention of more sex or bungee jumps.” Instead, these are the top five regrets of the dying Ware recorded.

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 that I had let myself be happier.

The first and most common regret has to do with our unfulfilled dreams. The second comes from every male patient Ware nursed. These men missed their children’s youth and their partners’ companionship. Yet all of us have the freedom to choose now to get off “the treadmill of a work existence.”

By suppressing their feelings in the third top regret, people tried to keep peace with others and instead settled for a mediocre existence. They even developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they subsequently carried throughout their lives. Those who became too caught up in their own lives and let go of their “golden friendships” remembered the richness of old friends only when it was too late to track them down.

The last regret, not allowing ourselves to be happier, is perhaps surprising because we don’t always recognize that happiness is a free human choice. Instead we remain enslaved by old patterns and thoughts. We pretend to others, and even worse, to ourselves, that we are content, when in truth we fear change and long to laugh harder and more often.

Steiner concludes her article by asking us the all-important question: “What is your greatest regret so far and what will you set out to achieve or change before you die?”