I Think About Death A Lot
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The Art of Becoming is a newsletter about finding value in adversity and embracing discomfort. Each week, I share an idea on how to find fulfillment, a little joy, be more resilient, and wiser and better along the way. It starts with you and me embracing discomfort.
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What we’re learning today
Read time: 5 minutes.
A great life begins with knowing you will die and choosing to live a lifetime every day.
A poem: My Brother is Gone.
I think about death every morning.
Especially today. My brother-in-law, Dave, died yesterday. After years of fighting pancreatic cancer, Dave closed his eyes and left us.
He died as he lived—on his terms.
I wonder if I would be the same. Or will I be negotiating for a few moments more when death comes? That’s if you count a moment as a decade or two or five.
My dying began the moment I was conceived, and nothing, and no one, most certainly not me, can push back my final day.
Thinking about death doesn’t make me morbid. Instead, the thought makes me appreciate life more.
Stephen Covey said, “Begin with end in mind.” A good or even great life starts with your death. If you knew this was your last day, what would you do? Would you go to work or try to cram as much life as you can in your last 24 hours? I would hold my wife’s hand and tell her she made my life great.
The Stoic philosopher Seneca wrote letters to his friend Lucilius about life and death. In one letter, he writes about meeting death and living each day as if it were a complete life. Not waiting for tomorrow but being fully engaged and not reflecting on the past with regret.
“I am endeavoring to live every day as if it were a complete life. I do not indeed snatch it up as if it were my last; I do regard it, however, as if it might even be my last.”
If you’re reading this article, like Lucilius reading Seneca’s letter, chances are today will not be your last. He wanted Lucilius, indirectly you and me, to approach each day as a whole lifetime. Rarely is it a do-or-die moment. Meet the day with passion and commitment.
Seneca lived as if each day was the last. He had no choice. Medicine was in its dark ages. There were no antibiotics to treat infections. Doctors believed leeching would cure most diseases. War was common. The average person lived to 25, and to make matters even more challenging for Seneca, he was an advisor to the Roman Emperor Nero, a short-tempered, petty, and ineffective dictator. Seneca was exiled for eight years and forced to take his life when Nero believed Seneca was complicit in an assassination attempt. A long life for Seneca or any man or woman at that time was much luck as it was skill.
The letter is short, but life can be short. He counseled Lucilius not to delay the necessary. He wanted Lucilius to do what needed to be done and to remember death could come at any time.
“The present letter is written to you with this in mind as if death were about to call me away in the very act of writing.”
He was not overly concerned about when he would die because he lived a full life. You’re less anxious and depressed when mindful of the present and not waiting for some arbitrary cliffhanger moment. Not worrying about a deadline or termination date makes living a little easier. I’m not big on mantras, but if I were, I would live by this one:
No amount of guilt will change the past, and no amount of worrying will change the future.
And then, Seneca reminds Lucilius to live for today and to stop worrying about his future end date. Death, like life, will happen when it happens.
“I am ready to depart, and I shall enjoy life just because I am not over-anxious as to the future date of my departure.”
We should consider the temporary nature of our existence. You can cross the street and get hit by a car. You can do everything right and still lose. A friend of mine lost control of his car and hit a tree. He’s been in a wheelchair for over 20 years. And it isn’t always our death that comes without warning, as I learned when my brother-in-law died. We thought, perhaps foolishly, that he had another year.
“Set our minds in order that we may desire whatever is demanded of us by circumstances, and above all that we may reflect upon our end without sadness.”
I remember thinking about death when a neurosurgeon told me my daughter would not live to see her first birthday. I did not want to live if my baby could not. We tend to think of death as a sad event. The death of my child would have broken me. But death isn’t always tragic. Sometimes, you can use it to celebrate a life. When I think about Dave, I don’t think about his last year. Instead, I remember eating sushi with him in a tiny hole-in-the-wall sushi restaurant in Cherry Hill. I remember his smile and pirate attitude. I celebrate him, not his death.
Seneca ended the letter by telling Lucilius that a long (and good) life depends not on the number of days lived but on the quality of life. A good life is a choice.
“We must make ready for death before we make ready for life. Life is well enough furnished, but we are too greedy with regard to its furnishings; something always seems to us lacking, and will always seem lacking. To have lived long enough depends neither upon our years nor upon our days, but upon our minds. I have lived, my dear friend Lucilius, long enough. I have had my fill. I await death.”
It was easy for Seneca to say we are too greedy for the furnishings of life. That life would provide. He was one of the wealthiest men in the Roman Empire, and Lucilius was governor of Sicily. They were in the ruling class. It is not wrong to strive, to want more for yourself and your family. But always hustling for more, always believing you will never have enough, is a recipe for living a poor life. No matter how much money you have.
For most people, thinking about their death is like drilling into an oil field of regret and consistently hitting a gusher. Guilt doesn’t drain you. It floods your whole being with shame and remorse.
When you know you can die today or tomorrow, you don’t waste time crying about yesterday. You try to cram a lifetime in every moment.
My brother-in-law knew he was dying. There were no words of regret and shame when he accepted his death. He did not say, “I wish I had done more” or “I wish I had not done this…”
Instead, he listened to his favorite Jimmy Buffett songs. He held his wife’s hand even longer than the day before. He watched more sunsets and played with his dog. He said I love you more. He laughed a lot.
If he had one regret, it was this: he wished he had done it sooner. He should have accepted his death years ago so he could have lived an entire lifetime every day.
Maybe we can learn from Dave.
My Brother is Gone
The Earth cries his name. The ocean’s waves stop crashing.
Everything is still. Nothing moves.
Turn off the clocks. Close the door and shut the windows.
My brother is gone.
A nothingness hangs in my chest, pulling
me down, filling my lungs and kinking
my elbows. A nothingness shouts,
My brother is gone.
I’m empty and drowning. Ring the bells,
scream the Gospels, take down the flag,
FALL TO YOUR KNEES,
My brother is gone.
I wonder if Heaven knows he’s left us.
Why should stars blaze and galaxies swirl,
and children play and robins sing when
My brother is gone?
But everyone goes to work, not drowning, and forgetting,
raindrops fall, a breeze touches my cheek, I hear
laughing and his name. In a crowd, I see
My brother everywhere.
Churches close and the neighbor shuts his gate,
and I open the curtains and hope for the sun.
A hummingbird hovers, a spider spins, the dog barks, and I see
My brother everywhere.
In the dark, I see the sun. I know he’s gone,
but my love is still not done. I see and hear him everywhere,
that’s how I know God opened his gates and welcomed
My brother home.
Thanks for reading.
Michael