The Elephant in the Room

From the moment you were conceived, it was 100% guaranteed. Unavoidable, no dodging it. Whether you eat health food or junk food. Whether you have perfect health or have cancer. Whether you have all the money in the world or are dirt poor. It’s the elephant in the room, that people so desperately try to avoid. You are going to die.

Honestly, it’s not a concept that I thought about a lot. I had just completed my roaring thirties. Everything seemed to be going, more or less, according to my plans. I had my goals and I was on a straight path to achieve them.

All of a sudden, I had my “you have cancer” moment and the eventuality was there, looking me in the face. “Holy crap, would you look at that”. It was always there, but the possibility of it was so far off, it was easy to ignore.

You almost have to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Someone just died right now, as I typed these words. People die every day. People live every day. A 25 year old in the prime of life, perfectly healthy, who wasn’t supposed to die, died in an accident. Someone, with stage four cancer, who was supposed to die, got better and is still living.

The longer I’ve thought about it and believe me, I’ve given it some thought, I’ve come to this conclusion. When it’s your time, it’s your time. Not that I don’t believe in free will and willpower to change your perceived destiny. Cancer, treatment for cancer, accidents, pneumonia and whatever you can imagine, isn’t going to take me until it’s my time.

I think fear, hits the nail on the head for most people, when it comes to death. I do personally believe in a soul, an afterlife and reincarnation, so that is somewhat helpful in removing fear. Fear of the unknown. I don’t think I fear death, but honestly, that’s easy to say right now. I will see when the time eventually comes, how true that is. Talk is cheap. Nothing like things coming to a head, to test your beliefs and resolve.

Personally, it was interesting for me. My first thoughts after hearing those famous three words from the doctor, weren’t about my well-being. They immediately went to the well-being of my wife and my young children. It was a tremendous weight on me. Would they be alright without me? It felt like I was the Titan, Atlas, holding up the weight of heaven and earth on my back. It was crushing me.

It took me, probably 2 years to set down my gigantic boulder. I realized, no matter how much I wanted, at a certain point, it’s out of my hands. I can put in my best effort, my best foot forward, but at some point, it will just be my time. Death was standing there, looking me in the face, we smiled, and I said “I’ll see you when I’m ready, I have more to do right now”.

I had just come to peace with it.

Life will go on after I pass. My wife’s and children’s lives will go on after I pass. I don’t know if that will happen in a year or fifty, but it will happen. At some point they will pass. Life (and death) will go on.

I have new goals and things that I want to do with my life, before I’m done. I’m curious if I’ll achieve them before I move on.

I’m going to keep living while I’m living. I find the previous sentence an interesting one. Only because, a lot of people don’t actually live life, they just exist. Waiting for something to happen to them, waiting to die? I don’t know, I suppose it’s different for everyone. I like to do a check on myself from time to time. Am I living or just existing?

It’s interesting listening to people with near-death experiences. I think I’ve only heard stories about how warm, loving and life changing for the positive they were.

I don’t know Anita Moorjani personally, but from what I do know of her, I am a fan. She was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma and did not elect treatment and ended up near death and in a coma a few years later, dying from lymphoma. She had a near death experience and lost her fear and ended up getting better. Quite an interesting story. She talks about her experience in a Ted Talk if you’re interested.

If you don’t believe in God or an afterlife, here is a scientific viewpoint. Albert Einstein said with his first law of thermodynamics, “Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another”. You are made up of energy, enough to power a 20 watt lightbulb at any given time. When you die, that energy can’t cease to exist. Where does it go?

In my small world, I can look around me and see people struggling with fear and their own mortality. I advise people to let go. Not to let go of living, but of the fear. Swimming upstream is exhausting, sometimes you just have to go with the flow of life. An orange is still going to be an orange, no matter how much you want it to be an apple.

It’s going to happen no matter what, so stop worrying about it. You are meant to live and you are meant to die. When you are doing what you are meant to do, that should bring some comfort.

I encourage you to think on it. Think about your life and death, and try to find some peace within yourself. After all, death could be the greatest adventure you don’t know about?