Knowing I Will Die Someday, How Then Shall I Live?
I know this sounds like a really "heavy" subject to be bringing up, especially now, in the middle of summer, when everybody just wants to escape the heat and curl up with a romance novel at the beach, or go to the mountains, pitch a tent, drop a fishing line and dangle your feet in a cool mountain stream and forget the world.
I'm choosing now to bring up the "D" word? Not to worry. I don't want to talk about death. I want to talk about life.
I know, it's not exactly light, summer reading, but hey, the sudden and shocking death of Michael Jackson three weeks ago coupled with the reality of my own breast cancer diagnosis three months ago has brought this important question to the forefront of my awareness in a new and urgent way.
One thing I've learned from both these events is there's only now. If something's on my radar screen, it's there for a purpose. And that, after all, is the point of this post; to live on purpose.
I said I wasn't going to talk about death, but let me just say this: the very fact of our death is ordained at the moment of our first breath, yet human beings live their lives, for the most part, in deep denial of this truth. The unexpected death of a loved one or the diagnosis of a life-threatening illness smacks us in the face; tears away our denial and forces us to look squarely into the abyss of our own mortality. I've just come back from taking a look into that abyss. While it had some interesting features, and I know I will return some day, for now, I'm quite happy to be back.
But like I said, the focus of this inquiry is not about death. Death, like it or not, is a given. Life is not. Life is merely a creative possibility that we shape and mold according to the choices we make during our time here on earth.
The $64,000 Question
Given that we know how the story ends, how do we make the time we spend here worthy of the life we've been given?
Within each of us, there is an innate call to connect to the greater whole in our own, unique way. We're called to actualize our potential, discover and develop our gifts and contribute them in some way that makes a difference in the human condition.
Each of us is called to be in service to life in a way that only we can fulfill. There is no one else who has the same combination of gifts or talents as you. You're one of a kind.
Another $64,000 Question
Given your life is yours to create, what kind of life do you want to live?
I was in my mid-30's when that question first arose for me. Up until then, it had never dawned on me that I had any choice in the matter. I was just putting one foot in front of the other, doing what I thought I was expected to do. Graduate from college, get a job, get married, start a family. My life was already laid out according to the messages from my parents and the culture in general.
I followed the rules and did all the things I was expected to do; but there was another dynamic at work in me that did not line up according to plan. Some deeper part of me wasn't buying it. I was living the life I thought others wanted for me, not the one I wanted for myself. I couldn't fit myself into that box, even though I was the one who'd constructed it. I was compelled to leave that life in search of the authentic life I sought to live.
That search has taken me far and wide and I'm happy to say I've found my purpose and lived in alignment with it for the past forty years.
Today, I'm much closer to the finish line. Sensing its increasing proximity puts a fine patina on the richness of whatever is left of my life. I feel a quickening, a knowing that while I may still have decades left to live, it becomes even more important that my remaining years be lived in service to my purpose. This is not the time to kick back and coast. Now post cancer, I've been given another chance at life, an opportunity to continue to make a difference. How will I use it?
I'm reminded of Mary Oliver's wonderful poem: When Death Comes
(not to worry, this poem is really about life)
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps his purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering;
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened
or full of argument.
I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.
What Do You Choose?
Each of us has a choice about how we live out our days in this lifetime. We can live in lockstep with how we've been conditioned and never question whether or not the choices we're making are truly our own or if we're merely following the script we've been given.
On the surface, this might seem the easier approach. Follow the rules: don't make waves, live to please others, ignore your own feelings, keep a low profile, don't upset anyone, be careful what you do and say, be concerned about what other people think of you, be in control at all times, avoid difficulties and anything unpleasant. Lots of people live this life and seem to do it well, at least on the surface.
Having worked with thousands of people over the years that have lived according to these unwritten rules for being human, it's clear that while this life might give the appearance of working, it comes at a heavy price. The price? Knowing who you are, that's all. But in the end, that's everything. So what's the alternative?
Living On Purpose
Another possibility is to live a life that is sourced from the deeper waters of the Soul. As I've said before in other posts, the soul has its own agenda. Sooner or later, it will have its way with us. The soul comes to fulfill its purpose. The sooner one can discover that purpose and align with it, the more grace we experience in the journey.
A life lived "on purpose" is not necessarily an easier life. It can be very challenging because you're not avoiding anything. Some of us come with strong and powerful lessons to complete. Living on purpose insures that you'll be continuously learning, taking new territory, dealing with uncertainty. But knowing that a larger purpose is being served and becoming aligned with that purpose puts one on a track that is supported by the very process of life itself. You were meant to fulfill your purpose.
Your purpose becomes your point of reference, your personal GPS. Choices that were obscure now become obvious. You operate from a level of Higher Being as opposed to being driven by the automatic, reactive, conditioned Ego. You learn to access your own wisdom and trust it. Imagination and intuition spark creative responses to life instead of automatic reactions. What once looked like a huge risk becomes the next obvious step in the direction of your authentic life. You begin to sense yourself moving in the direction of "home", your deeper truth. Your dreams take form. This is a life lived with intention. This is a life lived "on purpose".
Like Mary Oliver, I don't want to end up having simply visited this world. My purpose is to serve the planet in awakening to a higher consciousness. For forty years, I've been in service to my purpose through teaching, training, coaching, speaking and writing, being a mother and a friend.
As part of fulfilling my own purpose and to support you fulfilling yours, I'm launching a live, four-week tele-seminar series, Living On Purpose, beginning August 4th. For more information on the series and to register, please visit my website, Rx For The Soul at www.judithrich.com., and click on the Program button. While you're there, become a subscriber and receive my newsletter. You can also leave personal messages for me there.
How do you see your life unfolding? Knowing you will die someday, what do you see most important to fulfill in the life you have left to live? Are you on/off track? Can you see the path of your purpose? What steps do you need to take now to step into this life? I'd love to hear your thoughts and receive your comments below or on my personal blog.
I'm grateful to be on the healing path and launching myself into my new life, post cancer. Thanks to you wonderful readers for your healing prayers and blessings. I'm back.
Blessings on the path,
Judith
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Judith,
I re-read this after the events of earlier today. I visited a friend who I've been afraid of -- I didn't want to see him dying and he is in hospice care at home for how much longer we don't know. Cancer has reduced him to a skeletal version of his old self. I realized that avoiding him was about me, my fears, my bad memories (my dad died almost exactly the same way). I went to see him, it's about him after all, and was able to spend some time before I left listening to his wife who is working, working and working under the circumstances we'd all hate to endure.
It was difficult to see him, and realize that I was also fearing my own death one day, but it was what was right to do.
I wish you, as I always do, continued health,
Love,
James.
Thanks Judith. This theme must be in the air. On Saturday I led a one-day workshop called "Learning to Die" and tomorrow my Huffpo and Serene Ambition blogs by the same name will appear --- now linking to yours. My thoughts on this subject are on YouTube (search Eldering Institute) and focus on the notion that we're dying from the time we're born. If we weren't so fixated on death as an event, we might transform the process of life itself and see that confronting the fact of our mortality is one of the keys to being fully alive each and every day. Socrates said that "we can never find wisdom until we learn to die..." He never explained himself as far as I know which leaves it an 'open question' for us to consider and explore. When we no longer fear or live in denial of our own death we take the first step toward being responsible for our lives and the realization of who we are.
Thank you for this post. In terms of the Living with Purpose conversation, you may be interested in looking into the work of Richard Leider.
By the way, I went to your site (www.judithrich.com) and cannot find a Program button. I'm viewing your site in Firefox.
This is amazing! I think of death as just another stop on the circle of life. :-) I am in total alignment with what you put forward here. Actually, about once a year for the past decade i have been doing similar seminar work, mine was called "The Call" I think it's morphing this year!! I feel blessed to be in online (and hoepfully offline someday) community with you!
Love,
Jason
Dear Jason,
The blessings are shared. And there's no doubt in my mind we will meet offline someday, hopefully sooner rather than later. We're on the same path, so it's bound to happen.
Love to you,
Judith
Interesting article. If we honestly believe that this life right here is our only chance to do what we want to do, would we ever settle again? How much less would we accept? How much more would we be willing to overlook and forgive? How much more would we expect of ourselves? Of others?
It seems as though that too many people are too often settling into lives that simply pass the time. And rather than going out and living with purpose, they waste away in miserable jobs that they hate, married to people they can't stand. When the big D finally comes, their look back upon their lives with an air of regret, having never lived, truly.
This is our only shot. This is our only chance to be happy, to do good; to live. Make of it what you can, follow your heart, live your dreams. It all goes by in the literal blink of an eye.
Congratulations on your recovery and return.
Dear Schell,
Very well said!
Whether or not this life is our only chance is open to question, but I think the larger point is: this is the life we have NOW, so why not life this life AS IF it's all there is, because for all we know, it could just be.
Living the life we have NOW, knowing that at any moment, it could end, is what I'm really talking about. Knowing that, why would I hesitate to live with full-on passion or joy? Why would I settle for being anything less than who I truly am or settle for a life doesn't express my gifts ?
These are really powerful questions that inform and direct one's life. Thank you for raising them.
Many blessings to you, Schell,
Judith
I do not use the word death. I use the word change. The last change in the long process from the first change at birth.
All is continuous change in the flux of the cosmos and we all can be glad for such for if the cosmos was static, then it truely would be dead.
As we all come into this life through the first door and the first change we continue the changing process all of our existance here on earth until the final change and the final and last door.
We can all be thankfull for the moments we all have been blessed with and with the hope of further universes milleseconds beside the one we exist in, we continue our cosmic journey, living, growing, expanding consciousness till eventually we become one with the light each at their own pace.
The vastness of the cosmos with its' infinite potential is truely what can give us joy.
Such is my own personal hope and dreams.
Dear Norge,
Yes, it's all one continuous process, isn't it? I had an epiphany once that the door we enter upon birth is the exact same we exit at our death. ( I don't mind using the word) The body does die, the spirit lives on, I believe.
You speak a truth that I align with.
Blessings,
Judith
Judith,
I am a multiverse believer in a cosmos alive. Humans enter and are a part of the membrane until that time when it is necessary for that individual organism to proceed further..
And as a simple guideness for living ones' life while within this system, a fine little phy. by William Penn I read years ago:
I shall pass through this world but once
And any good therefore that I can do
Or any kindness that I can show to any human being,
let me do it now.
Let me not defer or neglect it
For I shall not pass this way again.
Have it well Judith.
From Norway
the last "change" we know of anyway...
Earvolution,
True! I suspect there's much more that awaits us "on the other side", what do you think? I totally make this up and acknowledge it's a fantasy, but I imagine we've work to do at the soul level once the body is dropped. I think it's all a continuous "classroom".
What say you?
Judith
i found the article quite interesting, but do wish the seminars were free. I guess I know we all have to make a living. But it seems strange that you'd write this editorial/blog and then use it to sell something.
That being said, I'm sure the tele-seminar is of value and it would be interesting to hear, however, perhaps you should have offered the first one free and then charge for others.
BTW - I'm impressed that you take the time to engage with your audience.
Dear Mark,
Thanks for your feedback. Sorry it doesn't work for you. Maybe next time.
Best,
Judith
Excellent Post.
Living each day as it comes - and as if it would be your last - is the the only true adventure of discovery left on this ever smaller planet. There is no place you can go more spellbinding and miraculous than the here and now - hard as it is to see when changing my moms diaper.
Think Magellan or Columbus and the vast territory of unknownness that has riches but also the Sargasso Sea. This is the inner life journey - with its uncertainty, savagery, times of starvation and times of miraculous wonder.
These guys were hard core realists and hard core dreamers and it was NEVER easy. Blood and guts, self discipline - self doubt and uprisings from the uncomprehending crew were everyday details. This is what it is folks. It's not a magazine spread.
littleredhen, thank you. I visit Dr. Riches postings not only for her opinions yet also for those who take the time to post.
Thank you again. Yes, "hard as it is to see when changing my moms diaper." or packing boxes and not knowing where I will be living, yet I am making each moment count with the realization that all any of us have is the here and now..."that's why they call it the "present."
It also helps to have role models like the ones you mentioned..."let us take the adventure" the adventure of being present.
"Together we can create a world that works for everyone."
you are not alone - thank you for reminding me too
See Dr. Cara Barker's Profile
First, my girl, I am so, so grateful you are on the mend. Your life is a textbook for living on purpose. You inspire so many, and I suspect, many, many whose names you do not know.
As you know, our process is so dang parallel all these years. No big surprise that there are connecting threads to my own blog this week, on the same page that has to do with recognizing "Fact or Fiction......................" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-cara-barker/fact-or-fiction-michael-j_b_231124.html
Living purposefully, to me, has a great deal to do with recognizing how to discern one from the other. And, then, taking the necessary next step to live truly, authentically, beautifully, gratefully, and, let's not forget, courageously.
Much love and gratitude your way,
Cara
So much to say to this post. I am so glad you have written this. These days I am in great pain and vacillate between feeling somewhat suicidal. I HAVE followed my soul's promptings for decades-being as faithful as possible to my purpose. Which I dreamed one night long ago was to WRITE THE SELF HERE ON PAPER. I had been writing long before I received that answer to my question what is my purpose. I also act, (as in theater/film) I also dreamed to help women know what they want and dreamed I had found my work which is being a healer. I have not found a way to make a living from these deep promptings. And am in $17,000 debt. I am anxious these days. For that and my aging parents. Many of my support group have died. I seem to be taken for granted by those who are still here in body. I'd love to talk with you if possible. Here's to the continuation of your healing whatever form that may take.
Dear Keene,
Please contact me through my website at http://www.judithrich.com. Fill out the "contact" form. It will send an email to me and I'll respond.
Best,
Judith
I've been sick 5 years which what has recently been diagnosed as late stage Lyme disease.
After you have been very sick you almost welcome death-- not because you hate life-- but as a means of escape from this disease.
I used to fear death, but not now. It is my hope we go to a better place and I will see my friends and family again who are not here any longer.
Dear ChelseaC,
I really hear you! I don't believe death is to be feared. I've always prayed that I could approach my own with surrender and grace. It's one of the most sacred events we'll ever experience. Having sat with many loved ones as their lives ended, I'm left speechless with the beauty of that final breath. Those of us who survive this loss may suffer, but the one who passes is finally free.
Dearest woman, may you live out whatever days you have left with full knowledge of your own beauty, your own worthiness, and knowing that you are Love itself, manifest in human form. I wish you peace in your journey.
God bless,
Judith
I'm 46 years old and 2 years ago I started my own bussiness. I tell people this bussiness is all about me and for me. I love my husband and my kids but I'm just starting to realize I love myself. I've never been afraid to die, I see it as the next step in the journey. I'm looking forward to your seminar.
Me too, treehuggindirtworshiper! See you there. Don't forget to register......
Love,
judith
I find myself thinking about this subject daily and love the way you put it into words. I got roughly halfway through the article and this part stuck out loudly:
Each of us has a choice about how we live out our days in this lifetime. We can live in lockstep with how we've been conditioned and never question whether or not the choices we're making are truly our own or if we're merely following the script we've been given.
Thanks for article and I hope you don't mind if I pass the above on to family and friends.
Dear Hair ShirT,
Interesting name....... Is there a story there?
Sharing the work is what the work is all about. I'm delighted you find value in it and want to pass it along. That makes my day!
By the way, don't forget to check the script. Is it the one you wrote or the one you were given?
Many blessings,
Judith
"Live each day as if it's your last."
Each day IS our last. There will never be another July 14, 2009, that put me around those people....and those flowers....and those musings from my children.
Figure out what to do with it, on the spot, as you see it unfolding. Poof, it's gone.
Dear AbyGail,
Well said! There's never been another July 16, 2009 and there never will be again. How shall we meet this day?
Hope yours is glorious! Thanks for coming by,
Judith
for you, Dr. Rich...a poem i wrote many years ago about our "tree of life" filled with love. Enjoy!
Under our Father's Tree we rest to believe
in a peace-filled life of love colored dreams;
of sky laughter and of rippled pools,
and of the bathing eye lights where all smitten lovers
pronounce their nibbling rules;
where hand-in-hand dancers
make toward attractive safe harbors;
where warmth comforts the beg of passions
to etch on the stemmed gift giver,
whose roots grow beyond our majestic fruits of forever...
...and where all our tender thoughts combine
to shape the secrets of perfumed divine...
so that as pardoned caresses soften our seat
it is with destiny we dine so complete.
david a. sincavage
boca raton, fl
Dear David,
Your poem is lovely and sublime! What a sweet heart you have. Your words took me right to the "peace-filled" life of love colored dreams".
Thank you so very much for sharing your wonderful gift,
Judith
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