What if you had a chance to take a peak at your own obituary when you’re still alive? And what if, on reading it, you end up feeling disappointed that you really didn’t achieve that much and that people will remember you for little when you had so many great ambitions and plans for the future. And what what would be more important, how people had remembered you or whether you had achieved most of your aspirations in life?
In truth, these two questions are inseparable from one another. The way we view ourselves and the goals we aim for, for better or worse, are influenced by those around us and the society we live in. Of course, people will behave differently when to this influence. Some will simply conform and go with the flow while others will rebel and challenge the mainstream. Others still will retreat to the safety of their own private worlds. But, the ultimate question is what would you do? Would it be more important for people to praise you, celebrate your life and to honour your memory? What if you felt unhappy and unfulfilled until that moment of death? And that all the success and glory attributed to your memory were only a façade - an image you kept up?
There’s no doubt that death is a topic that most people would do anything to avoid. Even if it’s not healthy to be constantly thinking of death, I feel it’s important for me to dedicate some time every day to meditate about your day. Although I don’t always stick to this practice, I feel that putting aside some time to cultivate your awareness of your own mortality helps me appreciate what I have and place my problems into perspective. Because, many times, we tend to think this life will never end and waste our energy in a struggle to get what we want thinking that once we gain this or that, we will be satisfied and fulfilled. I know for I’ve been there many times before. You think that once you get what you wand - be it many object you crave for or a social position,etc. - you will finally be content and peaceful. But that only lasts until you start craving for another thing.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have ambitions or a purpose to live for. However, it’s important that we are aware of what is really of value and to take the time to learn about life and discover what is really of value. For all the belongings, fame,money and all the things the world exalts, these are objects that only provide temporal pleasure and will not last forever. If we aren’t happy with our life, if we’re always absorbed in selfish desires, in fighting to outdo the other and only interested in what people think of us, we’re bound to live a life of suffering. For real suffering isn’t a matter of being in pain or disease. Our suffering arises out of our persistence in pursuing that which doesn’t last, it arises out of our attachment to who we think we are or to who we think it should be… It emerges out of our failure to grasp that in this life, we need others - that in our life we’re not separate from or superior to others.
Buddhist teachings place a great emphasis on the practice of compassion. I am trying to live my if de in accordance with this principle. However, you can find an emphasis on compassion in all the major religions and even in secular ethics. Unfortunately, while many would agree that the value of compassion is important, it’s sad that we’re still afraid or reluctant to live it. Perhaps we fear that in being more loving or compassionate, we expose our vulnerability and weakness to others. Perhaps then we will have to admit that we’re not so special but that we’re all unique and special in our own ways.
Then, at the end of the day, it wouldn’t matter that much what your obituary looked like. Not if you have lived your life according to what you believed in without causing harm to others. Not if you did your best to relieve the suffering of those around you. Not if you really invested your time in growing in compassion to yourself and to others. Not if you tried to live your life being true to your authentic being.
Showing posts with label life purpose. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life purpose. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Why do we have to die?
If you consider the many ways we express who we are and the different rolls we take on during our lives, it's not difficult to appreciate that how we define ourselves is dependent on context, our background and mood at the time we engage with the world and our inner selves. In simple terms, we have a need to express ourselves in a variety of ways, such as through artistic creations, scientific endeavours or by religious or spiritual practice.
While we may have a preference for one area over another, the fact remains that our attempts to express who we are and thus define who we are stems from a need to defy death in our own way. Whether this entails leaving a masterpiece, make a new discovery or even have children, we want to be remembered and gain a kind of immortality . Ironically, even those wanting to end their life by committing suicide are trying to tell the world something that we aren't noticing or are so lost in our private worlds that we see only as far as our inner circle.
These are important questions, and require some thought and more investigation. And I feel that I've neglected this aspect of myself which also defines who I am. Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to struggle for the rights of disabled people like myself. But, I'm at a stage of my life where I need to take a good look at my priorities in life and think more about whwant to achieve in life.
The experiences that impairment and the manner society has reacted to me (often disabling me) and all the adaptations I learned to make to address any limitation of the body, have influenced me for life. And even if many may assume my physical and sensory impairment were sources of great sadness and disappointment, my experience tells me a different story. Indeed, on the contrary, my apparent limitation has forced me to swallow my pride on many occasions. It also placed me in situations where I had to find alternative solutions to tasks that average people take for granted. More importantly, my differences have helped me refrain from judging others by their appearances because I knew how strangers have judged me.
But it's a trap when you think you can fight these forces by living a life that affirms your right to humanity. The risk is that by doing so, you become enslaved to a cage of your own making. In other words, you become stuck in a one dimensional reality. As a consequence, you avoid or neglect the other aspects of your life that you cherished since childhood. In my case, my longing for answers, my love for writing and my hunger for meaning. Ultimately, our quest for a degree of immortality and our thirst for purpose in life are our way of dealing with a Hunan concern.
Why do we have to die?
While we may have a preference for one area over another, the fact remains that our attempts to express who we are and thus define who we are stems from a need to defy death in our own way. Whether this entails leaving a masterpiece, make a new discovery or even have children, we want to be remembered and gain a kind of immortality . Ironically, even those wanting to end their life by committing suicide are trying to tell the world something that we aren't noticing or are so lost in our private worlds that we see only as far as our inner circle.
These are important questions, and require some thought and more investigation. And I feel that I've neglected this aspect of myself which also defines who I am. Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to struggle for the rights of disabled people like myself. But, I'm at a stage of my life where I need to take a good look at my priorities in life and think more about whwant to achieve in life.
The experiences that impairment and the manner society has reacted to me (often disabling me) and all the adaptations I learned to make to address any limitation of the body, have influenced me for life. And even if many may assume my physical and sensory impairment were sources of great sadness and disappointment, my experience tells me a different story. Indeed, on the contrary, my apparent limitation has forced me to swallow my pride on many occasions. It also placed me in situations where I had to find alternative solutions to tasks that average people take for granted. More importantly, my differences have helped me refrain from judging others by their appearances because I knew how strangers have judged me.
But it's a trap when you think you can fight these forces by living a life that affirms your right to humanity. The risk is that by doing so, you become enslaved to a cage of your own making. In other words, you become stuck in a one dimensional reality. As a consequence, you avoid or neglect the other aspects of your life that you cherished since childhood. In my case, my longing for answers, my love for writing and my hunger for meaning. Ultimately, our quest for a degree of immortality and our thirst for purpose in life are our way of dealing with a Hunan concern.
Why do we have to die?
Monday, May 16, 2011
The Experience
I am at a point where it's appropriate to tok about the experience that prompted me to reassess my life and reexamine reality. While there are other events in my life shaping my outlook and which, inevitably, affected my interpretation of events, I will limit myself to this one.
When I was in hospital for treatment, I needed to spend a few weeks as an in-patient. I shared a room with four men - all in their old age. I'm mo stranger to being in hospital but it's never a happy occasion. Worse still, it was the holiday season and you sense a change of mood as people celebrated Christmas and the New Year. And there I was in my room, partly bored and partly frustrated, as I was stuck inside. It didn't help to see that my room 'mates' didn't stay for long as they were either transferred or sent home.
During the last days of my stay, an elderly patient was brought in from intensive care. He was still in a bad state and was obviously pain and discomfort as he spent hours on end shrieking, screaming and swearing. Nights were particularly difficult as I would be awakened by hellish shriek follow by more terrifying shouts and more cursing. To this day, I feel an uneasy feeling when I recall that night. By the morning, the man seemed to have quieted down and little commotion was to be heard from his bed.
In the afternoon, the alarm belles sounded after a nurse checked on him. I was preparing for a nap I think when the nurse rushed for assistant and a defibrillator was brought in a desperate attempt to resuscitate the mam. The man was certified dead. However, the man had probably been dead for some time already. And I and the two other men who shared his room hadn't noticed. Indeed, we were relieved that we were having a quiet afternoon after a hard night kept awake by incessant and unsettling, cries. Cries, it would turn out, where of a dying man.
I was always aware of the possibility of death, but I was never so close to death as I was on that day. Never did I imagine how silently the hand of death could strike. I was shaken after I realized that a man had died and I was none the wiser. That life could end so unremarkably. That all of a sudden, a life ended after a futile struggle, yes, but still... Even if you know that life has to end, you cling to the delusion that you'll live forever. And that only natural but at the point when you are displaced of your usual routine, you cannot help but search for answers.
We want some kind of explanation, a hope and a purpose to our lives. We find comfort in religion, science, art or any way that justifies our existence. Otherwise, we can attempt to escape from death by forgetting or else live our lives indulging in self-pity and melancholy. Either way, we are avoiding to deal with an everyday reality - even if, in our clinical world, death tends to happen behind closed doors and masked by euphemistic phrases.
There... I told you! My experience. Nothing out of the ordinary. But yet, for that man, and for all those who came before and since who died,
It's a unique and singular event. It is unrepeatable in this life and what follows death is a matter of faith and speculation. But even when we claim that there's nothin after death, we are afraid and perhaps more if we don't believe in a reality beyond.
I've been here before. I thought I was satisfied with my life. But being a silent witness to a man's last hours. Being so indifferent to a dying man, until it was finished. To die alone like that. Perhaps riddled with anger and regret. But who am I to judge? And, what about my life, where was it leading me to?
It's here that I turned my attention inwards and reached within for an answer...
When I was in hospital for treatment, I needed to spend a few weeks as an in-patient. I shared a room with four men - all in their old age. I'm mo stranger to being in hospital but it's never a happy occasion. Worse still, it was the holiday season and you sense a change of mood as people celebrated Christmas and the New Year. And there I was in my room, partly bored and partly frustrated, as I was stuck inside. It didn't help to see that my room 'mates' didn't stay for long as they were either transferred or sent home.
During the last days of my stay, an elderly patient was brought in from intensive care. He was still in a bad state and was obviously pain and discomfort as he spent hours on end shrieking, screaming and swearing. Nights were particularly difficult as I would be awakened by hellish shriek follow by more terrifying shouts and more cursing. To this day, I feel an uneasy feeling when I recall that night. By the morning, the man seemed to have quieted down and little commotion was to be heard from his bed.
In the afternoon, the alarm belles sounded after a nurse checked on him. I was preparing for a nap I think when the nurse rushed for assistant and a defibrillator was brought in a desperate attempt to resuscitate the mam. The man was certified dead. However, the man had probably been dead for some time already. And I and the two other men who shared his room hadn't noticed. Indeed, we were relieved that we were having a quiet afternoon after a hard night kept awake by incessant and unsettling, cries. Cries, it would turn out, where of a dying man.
I was always aware of the possibility of death, but I was never so close to death as I was on that day. Never did I imagine how silently the hand of death could strike. I was shaken after I realized that a man had died and I was none the wiser. That life could end so unremarkably. That all of a sudden, a life ended after a futile struggle, yes, but still... Even if you know that life has to end, you cling to the delusion that you'll live forever. And that only natural but at the point when you are displaced of your usual routine, you cannot help but search for answers.
We want some kind of explanation, a hope and a purpose to our lives. We find comfort in religion, science, art or any way that justifies our existence. Otherwise, we can attempt to escape from death by forgetting or else live our lives indulging in self-pity and melancholy. Either way, we are avoiding to deal with an everyday reality - even if, in our clinical world, death tends to happen behind closed doors and masked by euphemistic phrases.
There... I told you! My experience. Nothing out of the ordinary. But yet, for that man, and for all those who came before and since who died,
It's a unique and singular event. It is unrepeatable in this life and what follows death is a matter of faith and speculation. But even when we claim that there's nothin after death, we are afraid and perhaps more if we don't believe in a reality beyond.
I've been here before. I thought I was satisfied with my life. But being a silent witness to a man's last hours. Being so indifferent to a dying man, until it was finished. To die alone like that. Perhaps riddled with anger and regret. But who am I to judge? And, what about my life, where was it leading me to?
It's here that I turned my attention inwards and reached within for an answer...
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