That Fateful Day

Imagine that you were told that you had only one more day to live. You received a phone call informing you that you had an extremely rare condition that was indisputably going to take your life by no later than tomorrow. That kind of information could really have an impact on how you will choose to spend the rest of that day. Now, imagine that later that day you receive another phone call from your work with better news. They tell you that since you have been such a valuable asset to their company, they wanted to give you a promotion. Your new position, if you chose to accept it, pays nearly double what you were currently making and gives you a bigger office. Even though this would be great news on any other day, how much would you really care about a promotion when you are under the impression that you are about to die? You wouldn't be interested in going to work much less consider advancement when there is no perceivable future. Your frame of mind would be focused on what you can do right now, and you would set out to make the most of it. Now, let's pretend that after the day is almost up, you receive a third phone call. It's from the doctor's office and they are incredibly sorry for giving you the wrong diagnosis. They were wrong about your disorder because they were looking at the wrong patient’s information and had the data mixed up. You're going to live after all. So much worry, so little gratitude to the great things that happened, all because of information that was never true.

The Twists and Turns of Life

Great news, bad news and tragic news; this is the roller coaster of life. So many of us tend to experience death before anything even happens. We focus so much on all the horrible things out there that are going to be the end of, us that we miss out on all the wonderful things that are happening right now. So many times, people tell us terrible news and we begin to act differently because of it, even when we aren’t certain it’s even true. If it's terrible news, we might be so blinded by it that if an opportunity were to fall into our laps during that time, we wouldn’t see it because our focus is on everything that’s going wrong and not on anything that’s going right. Without a pleasant or perceivable future to look forward to, we would have no ambition to do more than what we already are. There is this concept of the "daily grind" that a lot of us fall into where we are working day by day without any thought about our direction or whether we have any sense of fulfillment. Why would anyone want to just get by? Wouldn't you rather have the opportunity to live each day like it was your last, but not it having to be?

Ever since I was young, the thought of death terrified me. The idea that there was a point where consciousness stops and the world goes on without you, seemed incomprehensible. I remember, one day, while I was in yoga study, my teacher mentioned to us that every fear that a person could have is just a branch off from the ultimate fear; the fear of death. He said that everything that makes us feel afraid, does so because it is a subtle reminder that one day, we will die. I felt that death was such a waste though. Why would we be born, only to eventually have it all taken away from us? I've read countless books and articles on why we die and how the body ages, but it always seemed like something was missing. Something didn't make sense for life to end like that.

Not knowing what to make of death, has forced people to explain it through methods of religion and spiritual practices. With the promise of an afterlife, it becomes much easier to accept such an inevitable fate, but it remains a topic that’s rarely talked about in public. The dead are taken out of sight and the sick, hidden behind curtains to keep people from witnessing them. The most natural order that exists, is kept out of our conscious and unrealistically portrayed on television. It becomes repressed in our minds so that we don't have to live with such a burden on our chest and we become desensitized to it after countless hours of witnessing it within the news. It's only after the death of someone close to us, that we are finally reminded of it. Then it all falls on us at once and we start to pray for the unnatural; wishing and dreaming that others we hold dear will stay in this world for just a little bit longer. These are all grim ideas, but of course, are only the negative sides of death. Some people actually grow stronger knowing that they will die one day. Such are the Stoics who practice death before having to perform it.

The Stoics

Seneca once said, "It is not that we have so little time but that we lose so much… The life we receive is not short but we make it so; we are not ill provided but use what we have wastefully." Seneca was a philosopher who practiced the Stoic lifestyle. That is, he practiced Stoicism, which taught a person how to live a good life by understanding the natural order of it. A Stoic felt that emotions place a veil on your judgment and that to conquer life, you must be willing to die without fear and inadvertently live without fear. He at one point, found himself banished on an island, forced to survive. First, he had to accept his fate. After he conquered his fear of death, he was able to take the risks necessary to be able to build himself a new life and ended up thriving after a short while from just what he could scavenge.

One idea of Stoicism is to be able to detach yourself from the fear of death by envisioning yourself in great detail, being mutilated and killed in the most horrific ways possible until you have become desensitized to it. By becoming numb to the idea of death, you inadvertently find within yourself, a deeper respect for life. Seneca, even after serving his full sentence on the island and returning to society, said that that time in his life was the most powerful experience he had ever had and continued to practice Stoicism until he had to finally perform it. Although wrongfully accused, Seneca was viewed by the powers that be, of trying to form a rebellion towards the government. As a way of testing how true he was to his beliefs, Emperor Nero demanded that Seneca take his own life. After asking Nero permission to set up his will before passing on and it being denied, Seneca followed through with his own execution in spite of his son and dear friend being present. He looked in his son’s eyes and told him to remember what he would see that day as he carried through with one of the most brutal demonstrations he could manage. After having sliced through his arteries and poisoning himself, he slowed the process of death by laying in a cold bath, but in such a way that he endured great amounts of suffering, none of which, he showed. The toxins slowly spread through his veins as he convulsed and eventually bled out. Like he had imagined doing so many times before, Seneca killed himself so that he could teach his son and everyone who followed his philosophy, that he was true to his word. This time however, it was his final performance. Seneca was a true Stoic, who by envisioning death, had the opposite effect of feeling more alive than ever. Even when the time came for him to end his own life, nothing could have been taken away from him because he had found peace in everything, even his death.

Steve Job's Inspiration

"If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right."

There was a passage from a speech that Steve Jobs gave to the students of Stanford University for commencement that always resonated with me. He started by reciting the quote above and then followed it up with: "it made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror and asked myself: "If today was the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been ‘no’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything, all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure-these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way to know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose."

Ever since I heard this speech, I’ve kept it close to me. I look on it constantly and have written it in a book which I carry on my person everywhere I go. It's important to be constantly reminded that we don't have unlimited time to accomplish our dreams and that every single moment is just as important as the next.

Thank to those reading and Keep Steeming!