11/07/2025
Nurse who listened to over 300 people die found there are only seven things that really matter in life
We are all going to die.
Maybe this year. Maybe in ten. Maybe in sixty if we’re lucky.
Everyone knows life is temporary. That isn’t profound. What is profound is how few of us actually know how to live.
We only get one chance. One body. One life that was handed to us by our parents. And most of us spend the whole thing confused, anxious, scrolling, working, chasing… with no idea of what actually matters.
To terribly misquote Milan Kundera: “By the time we finally understand how to live, it’s too late.”
One person who understands death, and ironically understands life better than most of us, is a nurse by the name of Laura M.
As reported by Everyday Health, for fifteen years, Laura worked in end-of-life care.
More than 300 patients died in front of her. And as they waited for death they spoke. And Laura listened.
Interestingly, although these end-of-life patients all had radically different lives, much of what they had to say at the very end was the same.
After years of hearing people summarise their entire existence in a single sentence, Laura realised there are only seven things in life that truly matter.
Here they are.
1. “I should have loved more — and differently.”
George, 92, hadn’t spoken to his brother in forty years.
“I won the argument,” he whispered, “but I lost a lifetime.”
Nobody wishes they had held onto grudges longer. They wish they had said sorry sooner.
2. “I saved my joy for later — and later never came.”
A retired engineer spent his whole life saving money for the future.
He died three months after retiring.
“I was terrified of being poor,” he said. “I became rich in fear.”
We must enjoy things now.
3. “Forgiveness set me free.”
Some people didn’t struggle to breathe because they were afraid of dying. They struggled because of what they were carrying.
One woman refused to die angry. When her estranged son finally arrived, she forgave him. She passed away thirty minutes later.
4. “The best parts of life were small — and I was too busy to notice.”
Ask a dying person what they’ll miss and it’s never the big stuff.
According to Laura, they say: “The smell of rain.” “My dog breathing beside me.” “Sitting in the car singing badly with someone I love.”
A CEO told Laura: “I thought being busy meant being alive.”
It isn’t.
5. “Regret is heavier than failure.”
People don’t regret the job they quit or the person they asked out. They regret the chances they never took.
“I didn’t regret failing,” one said. “I regretted never auditioning.”
6. “Presence is the greatest gift.”
Laura said the saddest sound in the room wasn’t the heart monitor. It was the phone vibrating beside a visitor who wasn’t looking up.
A father admitted: “I was always there. Just never present.”
7. “Peace comes when you stop pretending.”
As people neared death, the performance dropped. They stopped caring what others thought.
One woman removed her wig and said, “I should have lived like this.”
The pattern beneath every deathbed confession. After her 300th patient, Laura stopped taking notes. She didn’t need to. Every story pointed to the same story.
We spend our lives chasing success, attention, recognition but in the end, the only thing that matters is how we loved and how we showed up.
These seven lessons didn’t just change her job. They changed her life.
Laura now follows three rules.
Every morning she asks herself: “If today was my last day, what would I regret not doing?”
Every evening she forgives one thing she did.
And every week she does at least one thing not for productivity, but for fun.
When someone asked Laura how she handles being around so much death, she said: “It’s not about death. It’s about clarity. Dying people aren’t sad—they’re awake.
My job is to wake up before they have to.”
And a final word from me that you didn’t ask for? Don’t waste your life. It’s beautiful and finite. So live laugh and love as the old proverb goes. 💖😃🫶
