Happiness = Accepting Death
Death keeps coming up, in conversations and in what I read. For example, I was talking with two friends this week about how much the American culture fears and denies death, and yet there is a 100% probability that we will all die. A past post also touched on death in the context of extinction, and the advice there was to live better, with death in mind.
Linda Leaming’s book explores happiness, including considering death as a pathway to living life more fully. Bhutan is a stellar case study on happiness, and apparently the Bhutanese think about death regularly as a way to appreciate life. Research also supports the notion that those who think actively about death are happier.
Having served as a Reiki volunteer in hospice for a few years, I can confirm that nothing gives me more gratitude and appreciation for life than the honor of guiding those who are in the last days of their lives. Let us embrace death so we can live better, and die well.
What we paint on the canvas of our life, and how we prepare for finishing the painting, will determine how happy we are, and how well we live and die.