As we get older, year after year, we see more and more of our relatives, friends and acquaintances in the obituary pages of our daily newspapers. Whenever that happened, it never failed to set me thinking about life, death and their uncertainties.
Always, my first thought was: we certainly are alive now. Or else, I wouldn't be writing this blog now and you wouldn't be reading it. We never ask to be born, yet we were. But, once alive, we realize that, in the end, everyone dies. So, why be born only to die later? Well, I think that's the wrong question to ask. We should just accept that our birth is a fact, we are now alive, but we will soon be dead. So, the real question is: what should we be doing in the meanwhile? And will that really matter?
It was obviously from these kinds of questions about existence and mortality during our teenage days that we felt a need for spiritual and supernatural answers. We later learned that this seeking constitutes the almost universal presence of the religious instinct. Yet, whether we subscribe to any formal religion, maintain a vague sense of spirituality, proclaim ourselves atheist, agnostic or free-thinking, these questions largely remain at the back of our minds in the later years.
Perhaps, the most vexing question after we passively consent to stay alive is this: if death is certain, yet, the time of death is uncertain, how are we to live to make our daily striving worthwhile, our relationships meaningful and find happiness and fulfillment however long or short our lives may be? In short, how can we deem our lives as successful if the Sword of Damocles wielded by the grim reaper may fall on us any minute?
Perhaps, we can't. We certainly can't if we go through life outwardly ignoring the prospect of death while in our hearts feeling fearful and secretly hoping for the best. We seem to think that death is unreal to us; that it should only happen to other people! So, not knowing how to face this uncertainty leads to a kind of fear - a fear that makes us reluctant to even think about it.
I think we must develop a strategy to make our lives successful and fulfilling in spite of this essential existential uncertainty. My strategy is to do all that I want and all that I can every day, limited only by the time-frame and life circumstances. Even if I were to die tomorrow, I wouldn't mind because up to that moment of death, I would have lived my life fully and according to the principles that I believe in. That, in a nutshell is what a successful life is irrespective of how long one really lives. It is to die without regrets. So, success is not a PROCESS OF HAVING wealth, status, fame, a long life or the number of grand-children or great-grand-children; but a PROCESS OF BEING. It is then up to the individual to decide what that state of being constitute.
For myself (and myself only), I believe in a daily state of being consisting of:
(1) An honest and authentic rationality
(2) A happy and contented attitude
(3) An imperturbable inner serenity
(4) A high self-esteem
(5) A capacity to love others
(6) An unshakeable sense of moral obligation to others
I believe that if I act according to this personal code of successful living every day, my life will not be in vain. So, should anyone else's life be as long as he could live his life according to the highest principles that he believes in day after day!
So now, my fear of death is gone and my anguish about its uncertain timing banished from my mind forever!
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