Barbara Ehrenreich has a new book out that addresses this issue called Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America
I was having lunch with a friend the other day and somehow during the course of the meal the topic of death came up. I think it was because we both realized that we are getting old.
I’m 41 and she is 38. I said to her that if we both live to the average life expectancy of western society, which is between 77.5 and 80 years, then we are basically at the halfway mark and wether we want to admit it or not, we are on the downward slope of the inevitable march to the Big Sleep.
My friend said that this was a bleak way to look at it. I, however, think it’s a very motivational. It means to me that I better get busy doing the things I want to do in life.
But, my friend said, death is only the gateway to the next adventure.
“But what if it’s not?” I asked her. “What if when we die that is it…no more…nada…nothing!? What would that mean to you?” She said that she would start living it up, going wild, getting the most out of life.
Isn’t that strange? The thought that this life is just one phase of an eternal journey allows my friend to plod along letting one day bleed into the next, no sense of urgency about taking control of her life and living it how she would want to live it. Whereas the thought that this is it, one life to live – no afterlife, just daisies and dirt, fills her with a sense of urgency to “live it up.”
I’ll leave you with a statement and a question: this IS your life, the only life you will ever have, what are you going to do with it?