How Contemplating Death Can Help You Live a Happier Life

December 30, 2020 Nancy Wilson

I’ve thought a lot about the harshness and fragility of life in the past year. Last October my friend's stepson was murdered in a road rage incident. It shook me to the core to think about this kid in the prime of his life, about to graduate from high school, and in one instant, his life was snuffed out. Then there was the student at my daughter's high school who was accidentally shot and killed while on campus when a classmate took out a gun to show it off. We had a death in the family not long after that, and one more recently that came after a long battle with a painful degenerative disease.

And of course, there is COVID-19. At the writing of this post, there are over 200,000 Americans dead from the disease that turned our lives and the world upside down. The great pandemic has reminded us all of our mortality and of the fact that we are ultimately not completely in control of our lives.

My kids love to watch nature documentaries. My family will be sitting around watching a National Geographic special showing some ocean in all its grandeur and mystery. Then the camera pans to a seal seemingly playing in the water when suddenly a shark appears and catches the seal in its teeth.

In that one shot, they have captured both the beauty of life and the harshness of death. It is another reminder of mortality and the fragility of life.

What happens after?

When you suffer the loss of someone you love, there is little time to contemplate the meaning of death much less to feel good about it. You feel an ache in your body. Time stands still. Food loses taste. Nothing else in the world matters. It feels like you will never be happy again.

When you emerge from the storm of grief, you can make space for perspective. You have an acute sense of the value of life and the insignificance of so many other things that bothered you before. When someone you really love dies, sometimes, the conflicts and resentment fall away, and all you have is the feeling of love.

Health Anxiety

I have counseled clients with health anxiety, sometimes called hypochondriacs. They fear death and see the signs of possible disease in their body in a compulsive way. They are sure that they have some undiagnosed medical condition and often can't let go of the idea that they must catch this condition before it kills them. Every ache, pain, or unexplained symptom is cancer, or worse.

Many of the clients with health anxiety that I have worked with are parents. One of their biggest fears is leaving behind their children. This fear comes from a love for their families, but it can be crippling. Interestingly one of the most effective treatments I have found when working with these clients is helping them face the idea of their own death with acceptance and mindfulness. It is not easy to do, but once they master this, the fear of dying and the hypochronidasis no longer has power over them.

Even if you don't have health anxiety, I believe considering your own mortality can be not only instructive but also help you to live a more meaningful, happier life. The research supports this idea that people who survive brushes with death or even are close to those who do survive have positive effects.

They are less likely to take people for granted, more able to live in the present, more capable of putting things in perspective. They often become more altruistic and less materialistic and relationships are more intimate and authentic. All of those things are great gifts.

What can we learn from thinking about death?

Irvin Yalom, an American Existential Psychiatrist, said, "Though the physicality of death destroys an individual, the idea of death can save him."

How do we learn these traits? A diagnostic question I sometimes teach clients to ask themselves when they are upset is, "Will I care about this on my deathbed?" This puts so many things in perspective. It helps them answer the question, "How much energy should I put towards this problem or endeavor?" It helps people prioritize what really matters.

Life is precious in part because it’s finite. One day your body is whole and healthy, but it a certainty that death will come to us all. We hesitate to consider death because it's morbid and scary. But only when you accept the reality that you will die, can you really begin to live more fully. It's a strange paradox.

Because you know that you only have a limited number of days with your kids, you can put up with their whining and appreciate the wonderful moments. Because you know that your partner will die one day, you can more easily let go of the little conflicts and quirks that irritate you, and just enjoy their presence. Because you know you will die one day, you dig into relationships, you slow your life down, you really taste the food as you have never before. Everything can be more beautiful and feel more valuable because it is finite.

That doesn't mean the death of people you care about won't hurt. We are human and we feel grief, sometimes earth-shattering, seemingly limitless grief. Without love, there would be no sadness. Without suffering, there wold be no joy. That is part of the deal.

Still, I encourage you to make contemplation of your mortality and the brevity of life part of your meditative practice. It will enhance your ability to be in the moment and truly live.

“Virtually every great thinker. . . has thought deeply and written about death; and many have concluded that death is inextricably a part of life, and that lifelong consideration of death enriches rather than impoverishes life.” Irvin Yalom

The advice in this blog is not a substitute for professional counseling.

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