My grandmother, who turned 87 today, once told me something that made a lasting impact:
“It’s hard when all your friends keep dying”
If there is one thing we tend to underestimate as we all buy new shoes, make career choices and upgrade our furniture settings, it is the mortality factor.
Most of us have been alive for as long as we can remember. Picturing ourselves as somehow ‘not alive’ is both confusing and a little bit “trippy”. Somebody once said “Live each day like it is your last” – a nice piece of reality-altering philosophy that will help you seize each day. Of course, taking this too literally can make that statement true a little sooner than it needs to be. There is a danger to assuming that you will die soon and forsaking the long run completely. However, in spite of its relative simplicity, I have always liked the concept of setting aside daily life to confront the concept of mortality straight on. Here is the thing: I think we should project mortality on others as much or more than we do on ourselves.
When I was younger I started to play a strange psychological game. I would imagine the emotional impact it would have on me if the person I was speaking to would suddenly die. (This is one of many, many reasons why I am not a good listener). If you have known me for a long period, chances are that I have tried to come to terms with your untimely death several times while I was pretending to listen to you. (In my defense, if you were saying something interesting, I probably wouldn’t have started daydreaming.) I suspect that started this habit as an insecure measure to try and prove to myself how stoic I thought I was. In time, as I actually got good at this and a little more honest about how much the people around me actually mean to me, I came to really benefit from the experience.
This is never a violent or angry exercise. More the opposite, I tried to come to terms with the fact that everyone I care about will die. I can only assume lots of people do this, though I have never discussed it with anyone. After all, everyone around us will actually die. It’s not like I’ve added an unexpected plot twist or anything. We all have experienced death, been to funerals, and comes to terms with these kind of issues before. Everyone feels intense emotion when they lose someone, and we often wish that we had worried less about the details surrounding our relationships and just enjoyed being around the people that we had lost. Moreover, we regret not letting loved ones know how much that they had meant to us, often because we don’t necessarily realize these things until we have lost someone. Some people carry these experiences with them for the rest of their lives; others push it deep into their subconscious and rush back into the safe routine of day-to-day life.
One of the worst mistakes you can make is to not fully appreciate the people around you. When you think about it, nobody really owes you a second of their time. Most people struggle with their own lives, held back by their own faults, but some still try to find a way to share their lives with you.
I know what you’re probably thinking: “Gee Mark, picturing all of my closest family and friends dying sounds like a lot of fun. Do you have any advice as to how I can ensure that I get the most possible benefit out of the experience?”
Fear not enlightened reader, for that is why I am here.
Picturing your loved ones dying is not only morbid, but it is also difficult. It takes practice to really put yourself in a frame of mind where you can accept such a drastic change. I find that the trick is to smart small and think about how the details in your day-to-day life that will change.
“Who will I play golf with?”
“What will happen if I need a jar opened?”
These may be the least important results of a tragedy, but this forces you to actually take a practical look at the changes you will face. Once you start to put a face on change, your imagination will get the hang of it and start to run with the idea. Eventually, you begin to get a sense of the loss. Suddenly, the things that irritate you about someone become less important. I think that we worry too much about people's faults when we should just be thankful that they have brought the strengths of their personality to our lives.
And so I give you Theory 15: Take the time to accept that the people in your lives will die, and you may be forced to live through it. Whenever you lose someone, you are forced to take stock of yourself and decide whether you truly appreciated that person. One of the best ways to make sure that you did is to regularly remind yourself that you have only limited time with the people around you, while they are still around.
(On a sidenote, if you picture someone dying and you don't miss then as much as you thought you would, stop wasting your and his/her time. Set them free to find someone else who will appreciate them. I regret how much energy I have wasted on the wrong people.)
Personally, my favourite part of this entire conversation is the hidden irony of the benefit of selfishness. I started out being horribly narcissist (as per my usual formula), picturing people dying and thinking only of myself and how I am affected. However, the better I got at doing this, the more I started to see past this and focus only on what I appreciate about other people. If you can truly become a better person from such self-involved introspection, than maybe the Book of Mark will have a practical use for me besides just tracking over time the impact of my many horrible vices on my ability to express a thought clearly.
As for my loved ones, let me just say two things: First, the wisdom of this theory has long helped me put up with each of you even though so many of you suck so very much. Second, I just want to say that all of you really mean. . .
Ahh screw it. We’ll talk later.
Right?
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