How To Create A Healthy Relationship With Death

“When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.”

Tecumseh

Photo by Mathew MacQuarrie on Unsplash

People have an awful relationship with mortality, and it’s not a surprise considering the broader societal context.

Society implicitly teaches you to avoid thinking about death through distraction. It doesn’t need to mention the subject when a vice controls you, whether that be junk food, social media, chasing status, etc.

If you didn’t already know, society doesn’t serve your best interest. It certainly doesn't want you to get in touch with the finite nature of your reality.

What inspired me to write about this?

As a twenty-four-year-old, I’m grateful to have a more holistic understanding of mortality than my peers because I have witnessed it multiple times.

The most prominent example is my father's death at eighteen while pursuing a childhood dream alone, halfway across the globe.

I still remember traveling back home and being forced to confront the harsh reality of my circumstance. It’s humbling to watch your father lay lifeless via a coma in hospice care.

To date, that experience was the worst, yet most necessary.

I write this so you may learn a thing or two from my pain.

Live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart.

To act like most people and spend your days scrolling through a cable television screen or iPhone is a shit way to live.

Most fear death because, deep down, they know they’re cowards.

When you realize you don’t have a pair to live courageously, you will do anything to rationalize your current lifestyle and mentality.