Let’s talk about the inevitable – death

As human beings, most of us live our lives as though we will live forever. Also, we do not speak openly about the one thing that is certain from the day we are born – death. Perhaps we do not discuss it because in bringing about these discussions we will begin to question the purpose of life and have many existential crises.

Today, I am writing to remind you reader how precious your life is as you obviously already know but tend to forget.

Confrontation with death came early in my life. I lost my grandfather and grandmother from my mother’s side of the family when I was four and eleven years old, respectively. My paternal grandparents passed away when I was twelve years old (grandmother) and nineteen years old (grandfather). To add to these, I also lost an uncle, cousin and sister. My sister passed away when I was fourteen and if all the accumulations of deaths in our family did not make me realise how precious life was, her death certainly did. As I am now older I realise how much impact these losses had on my view of the world and life itself.

Recently, I was teaching a class and our topic for the lesson was bucket lists. Some people said they would wait until they retire to do certain activities on their lists. As logical as this sounds in this day and age with regards to finances etc, what if you do not make it to retirement age? We live with the idea that we will make it till old age but what if we do not? What would you do differently if you knew you had ten years, one year or one week to live?

I guess that’s one of the bittersweet realities of life – we will all die but we just don’t know when. It makes me wonder why discussions about death or even blog posts like this seem taboo. Is it because we do not know much about what happens afterlife or is it because of the grief we feel for relatives and friends that have passed on that this question brings to life again?

Whatever the reason is, I think it is beneficial to remind yourself that you are on this earth for a limited amount of time. In light of this, perhaps we would stress less about certain things and focus more on what brings us joy and contentedness. Reminding yourself on a daily basis that you are blessed to be alive yet another day can be a good way of not letting the less pleasant issues in life ruin your day (as your time is valuable).

I know it may sound strange but ever since I began to see how ‘short’ life is, I took on a more laid-back approach to problems. If something does not work out, there is no stress – as long as you are still breathing that is all that matters. Awareness of how expansive this universe is, makes you see how insignificant we really are in the grander scheme of things. This may be sad for our egos to realise but I also think it is freeing for our souls as we have a choice in how we react to the hard times in life.

Do not take your family, friends or other human beings in general for granted because we are all passing through this earth and we do not know when our time to go will be. If you want to do something or try something new do your best to not let the obstacles in your way stop you – you only have this one life to live.

Regardless of your age, do what makes you happy and not what society says you should. Are you in your sixties and want to learn how to bungee jump or learn new skills? Do not let your age and the timelines of this world stop you from living the life you want to live. I think if we all knew when we would go we would live more authentically and not live just to follow societal norms.

Are you extremely stressed about something you cannot change? Try your best to remind yourself that one day you won’t be alive, maybe you will spend less time stressing about the things you cannot control and going with the flow of life.

One of my biggest values in life is to try my best to do as much good as I can in my lifetime. I want to make the experiences of living beings on this earth as pleasant as possible and help others where I can. On behalf of my sister – be good and kind to all and live life fully.