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Seems like as I get older death is all around me. I'm approaching my 50's and in the last 6 months 5 people I personally knew have died. 1 was aorta aneurysm a co-worker who I worked with for 5 years and new well i his late 50's, My next door neighbor wife who really followed the rules of being healthy she died last week 1 year battle with cancer. My ex manager who was 32 committed suicide I kept in touch with on facebook and met his family a few times. A friend who I haven't seen in about 8 months murdered her ex-GF and went back to her home and committed suicide couple of weeks ago. I wonder if Ill be the next to go for me i'm not worried as much but, I worry about my wife being alone. I guess just life have to learn to live with death. I find my self worried more about my health more my father had heart trouble in his 40's I wonder if Ill have the same problems although seems like modern medicine has no way to know what is wrong until it's too late.
You could be here for double your age now so stop worrying, if your times up its up.. the way I look at it... Im almost 70 and still plan ahead all the time... and even though my mum and father died at almost the same ages 75 and 76.. I tell myself that they were both heavy smokers and it wont happen to me.. life is a gamble , get on with living..
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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If the worry about death causes people to have a healthier lifestyle, then it's good. Still, anyone can get hit by a bus, have a tree fall on them, get caught in a drive-by, or be hit by a fatal disease. I prefer not to worry about something I cannot control, and no one can control fate. Just try not to temp it.
I've found that as I get older, I have less and less fear of dying.
When I was young, death was either so far off I could choose to deny it, or things like a tiny pain or lump would plunge me into fears of cancer and dying.
Now (I'm 47) I really don't fear death. I don't want to speed it up of course, and I keep myself mostly healthy and I don't do unreasonably risky things. But I feel like if I were to die, I'd be okay with it. If I should die suddenly, then I won't see it coming, but I feel like I've lived a good life and I have "all my ducks in a row." If I were to be diagnosed with some fatal condition, I would go through what I consider reasonable attempts at treatment, but all the while being prepared for dying.
I just figure, everyone dies. Everyone throughout human history has died. So I'm not any different. Many of those people throughout human history didn't even make it to my age, or have the opportunities I've had in this life, so I'm already very fortunate. The important thing is living a good life while you have it, whether that's 25 years, 50 years, or 100 years. I'd rather die at 50 knowing that I've been a decent person and learned a lot in this life, than live to 100 in a life I can't be proud of.
Fear of death is normal for anyone who fears it, because that's their psychological make-up. It just depends on the person.
I don't fear death now at 56 any more than I did when I was a youngster. In fact I probably fear it less now. I wake up each morning just thankful I woke up. Everything else in front of me is the great unknown, and I'll just take each day as it comes.
Fear of death is normal for anyone who fears it, because that's their psychological make-up. It just depends on the person.
I don't fear death now at 56 any more than I did when I was a youngster. In fact I probably fear it less now. I wake up each morning just thankful I woke up. Everything else in front of me is the great unknown, and I'll just take each day as it comes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pitt Chick
I am in my 60s and I have never feared death.
It happens to everything eventually, so being afraid won't change the outcome!
It's a simple fact, everyone who is born must die.
I have never feared death. I wonder if fearing death is something we learned? Either from society or our family?
I know I want to live and die with honor and courage. I know a lot of religious folks look forward to the "reward" of the afterlife. But I have never been into what some organized religions teach about the afterlife.
If anything, I am more in the realm of I want to look back on my life and be happy I tried to be a good person and tried everything in life that I wanted to try. Sort of giving myself an "attaboy" pat on the back.
Death is not on my radar as being "bad" or something to fear. Why go through life fearing death? I just don't feel that way.
If one does not acknowledge and fully accept the fact of their own mortality, then there tends to be anxiety surrounding it. This is not suddenly true for the OP, however, it may well be that they've managed to push it aside / ignore it until recently. From about 50 on, more and more people you have known throughout your life begin to die off and this forces you to consider things such as that you are past the halfway mark yourself. You can no longer pretend that your life isn't going to end the same as everyone else's.
I made peace with my mortality by my late 40s, in no small part because I experienced a lot of death in my fourth decade ... a sibling, my wife, good friends ... and I came to realize that life is fragile and impermanent. The impermanence of all things is the basic teaching of Buddhism. I am not a Buddhist but I believe they are correct on this score.
Accepting that you are mortal and your life is finite, and living within that true scope for yourself, brings many benefits. It makes the one life you're certain you have all the more valuable. It diverts energy away from pointless immortality projects, and away from obsessing about the past or the future. It makes you more present and more content.
I was a primary care partner to a couple of friends in the AIDS epidemic in NYC, as well as a volunteer to other persons with AIDS in my forties and early fifties. This experience went on for a number of years, and had many social aspects that do not normally come along with death. What I brought away from this was a fear of dying, and dying in the cold and impersonal atmosphere of a hospital.
Otherwise it was an emphatic lesson in what Mordant has mentioned already re Buddhist teaching, all things are impermanent and change is what is unchangeable in life. I am seventy-eight, not especially good health and I think of death fairly often, but again it is not with a horror being dead but a concern about prolonged pain or a hospital death.
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