Perhaps we're hard-wired not to talk about this much and maybe fear has got a lot to do with it, but we don't tend to discuss what things might be like at our own deathbed scenes – although I'll bet many of us try to imagine what thoughts or regrets we'll be having as this jolly old life slips away.

I'm not being maudlin. Surely most of us wonder about our inevitable demise from time to time, simply so we can attempt mapping out what we want from life while we're lucky enough to be living it.

It's a positive thing to do – and the reason I write about it now is because an Australian palliative nurse has written a remarkable book about her experiences with people who are close to death.

Bronnie Ware's book, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying – A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing is a memoir of her own life and how it was transformed through the regrets of the dying people she cared for.

How does that famous Edith Piaf song go? "Je ne regrette rien..."

"No, I'm not sorry for anything."

And that surely, should be the aim of every living soul. To be able to utter the final words: "It was all fantastic. I loved every minute. I was loved and in return I loved. I do not regret a single second."

It's probably never going to be totally that way for any of us. But at least we can try. And one way to start would be to take on board warnings about the five main big end-of-life regrets listed in this book.

The most common is: "I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me."

Now, being a selfish blighter, I reckon I'm up with that one. I have an interesting job, flitting about the world learning and writing about fascinating things – and wouldn't have it any other way. However, I understand Bronnie when she writes: "When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it."

So, what about the second biggest deathbed regret? "I wish I didn't work so hard."

Now this one I can see looming large across the plains of that final deathly duvet…

"This came from every male patient that I nursed," says Bronnie. "They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence."

(Note to self – tell WMN editor I'll be cutting my hours as from now).

Number three in the big regrets stakes? "I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings."

"Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others," reports Bronnie, who spent years looking after dying folk in their homes. "As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result."

Fourth in the If-only-I'd-done-it-differently charts is: "I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends."

Now, I reckon this must be a regret that's on the increase in this modern world where friends and often families find themselves living in far corners of the planet.

"Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down," says Bronnie. "Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying."

And lastly? "I wish I had let myself be happier."

This is the one which, being a hedonist, I have most difficulty in accepting. But Bronnie states: "Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits.

"The so-called 'comfort' of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again."

Perhaps I do understand it. Maybe we all do. However, it's all very well feeling a kind of courage on your deathbed when you've nothing to lose – but in life everything has consequences and we should be careful what we wish for.

After working through that little lot, my big ambition is to simply stave off the fateful day for as long as I can – though not so much that I shall end up regretting that I've had to say no to life's many wonderful but ruinous pleasures.