5 replies to this topic

[thismoment]

Most of us do our best not to think about death. But there’s always part of our minds that knows this can’t go on forever. Part of us always knows that we’re just a doctor’s visit away, or a phone call away, from being starkly reminded with the fact of our own mortality, or of those closest to us. I’m sure many of you. . . have experienced this in some form; you must know how uncanny it is to suddenly be thrown out of the normal course of your life and just be given the full time job of not dying, or of caring for someone who is...

But the one thing people tend to realize at moments like this is that they wasted a lot of time, when life was normal. And it’s not just what they did with their time – it’s not just that they spent too much time working or compulsively checking email. It’s that they cared about the wrong things. They regret what they cared about. Their attention was bound up in petty concerns, year after year, when life was normal. This is a paradox of course, because we all know this epiphany is coming. Don’t you know this is coming?

Don’t you know that there’s going to come a day when you’ll be sick, or someone close to you will die, and you will look back on the kinds of things that captured your attention, and you’ll think ‘What was I doing?’. You know this, and yet if you’re like most people, you’ll spend most of your time in life tacitly presuming you’ll live forever. Like, watching a bad movie for the fourth time, or bickering with your spouse. These things only make sense in light of eternity. There better be a heaven if we’re going to waste our time like this!

There are ways to really live in the present moment. What's the alternative? It is always now. However much you feel you may need to plan for the future, to anticipate it, to mitigate risks, the reality of your life is now. This may sound trite... but it's the truth... As a matter of conscious experience, the reality of your life is always now. I think this is a liberating truth about the human mind. In fact, I think there is nothing more important to understand about your mind than that if you want to be happy in this world.

The past is a memory. It's a thought arising in the present. The future is merely anticipated, it is another thought arising now. What we truly have is this moment. And this. And we spend most of our lives forgetting this truth. Repudiating it. Fleeing it. Overlooking it. And the horror is that we succeed. We manage to never really connect with the present moment and find fulfillment there because we are continually hoping to become happy in the future, and the future never arrives.

Even when we think we are in the present moment we are in very subtle ways looking over its shoulder anticipating what's coming next. We're always solving a problem. And it's possible to simply drop your problem, if only for a moment, and enjoy whatever is true of your life in the present... This is not a matter of new information or more information. It requires a change in attitude. It requires a change in the attentiveness you pay to your experience in the present moment.

Sam Harris

[fishinghat]

Interesting TM.

'Most of us do our best not to think about death'

 

Actually I do frequently think about it. Years working an ICU during Vietnam. (You can't believe the things I saw people endure). My own health issues as well as my families in addition to 30 years od emergency response for private firms including chemical spills, explosions, medical emergencies etc. I have probably seen 100s severally wounded or dead. AND you have never experienced 'packing' a dead body of some one you were treating or talking to just 2 hours earlier. Yes, I think about death often and has lead to many of my anxiety issues of course. Death is an old companion of mine. H evisits family and freinds often.

[TryinginFL]

Interesting indeed, TM...

 

Losing ones close to you is a traumatic experience.  Sometimes I wonder how I survived.

 

Truly, I need to think about the present as I admit that I tend to live in the past - in the happy memories.  It is time to start making happy moments now.  This is not always easy.

 

Thank you for the insight.

 

Liz

[lady2882Nancy]

Having lost my daughter, my only child, when she was just 27 I have often thought about the futility of life, my wasted actions before and my place in it now.

 

The deep depression that Cymbalta put me in made me suicidal and I could not tell you why I am still here. Mostly lack of the ability to alter the plan that I had in mind. And I did have a plan but when that was derailed I could not find an acceptable alternative.

Now I have done the routine with the psychologist where you go through all the reasons for not committing suicide and although the desire for it all to end is still there, I question my selfishness.

 

My now having a more active form of Bipolar II makes it almost impossible to plan for the future. I cannot say what I will be capable next week or even tomorrow so only deal with one day at a time and hope for the best. I like to go walk my dogs and get lost in the sound of the wind blowing in the trees and watching the birds darting about getting materials to build their nests and the rabbits nibbling on the new growth that is just starting on the edges of the lawn.

 

I don't deal well with groups of people or shopping. Really would anyone miss me if I was gone?

[fishinghat]

Lady Nancy

 

I would!! We go backa long ways and I always think about you and what you have endured. i consider you a freind and I care about you.

[TryinginFL]

Lady Nancy,

 

I understand much of what you have been through.  As well as the therapy, withdrawal, sadness, crying - I sometimes feel the same but know that it would hurt my family and besides that, it is a sin.

 

The sixth anniversary of my daughter's death is next month and I am already going through hell as the day approaches.

 

We would all miss you and your helpful posts to so many.  Please do not think that way!  Be thankful that you have a husband for support!  I have been alone for over 26 years and it isn't easy.

 

Stay with us and please come back home here when you need to vent - we all care!

 

 

Liz