When we Stop Fearing Mortality

When we embrace our mortality we embrace our humanity, and there is the potential of great joy in just being human. I discovered that by spending time with people who were close to death. The honesty, humility, wisdom, and love that emerges during times of vulnerability cracks me open and fills me with awe. That's why we created Bcelebrated - to help people find the simple joy that comes from being human, sharing love, thoughts, and stories.

Our society has embraced a pathological denial of death, an obsession with retaining ones youth, and a compulsion to increase longevity.

A participant in A Year to Live asked me the other day if this project is easier for young people or older people. He's in his 70's and this experiment is causing him to evaluate his life and passions and get clear on the gifts he must share with the world. I don't know the answer to his question, but I assume the experience is more relevant to one in the second half of life than it would be to one in the first half of life.

This participant told me that he'd read studies that it's possible to live to 150 years old and asked what I thought of that. "Why?" was my response. "Why would we want to live to 150 when so few of us are actually living now?" I imagine that evaluating his life as he has done in this experiment, it might be reassuring to have a life expectancy of eighty more years stretched out before him, but there's a sense of urgency that comes when time is running out. A sharpness of focus comes to life when we realize we're nearing the end.

So many of us live our lives unconsciously, driven by our habits and fears. Pushing the finish line farther away is what so many people are trying to do now, and it doesn't seem to be giving their life meaning.

Cherishing my human experiences, accepting what comes my way, relishing my relationships, and nurturing my connection to all that is divine becomes the core of my life when I embrace my own mortality and realize that I won't have 100 more years to enjoy my life. I may only have today.