Let’s talk about something we try to avoid talking about as a society: death. When we are born, there is only one certainty in this world: every living being that is born will eventually die—there is no question about it. It is the only guarantee we are provided in life. There is no guarantee you will be healthy, or wealthy, or that you will find love. But we all die.
Although death is a certainty, we are never willing to accept this as a fact of life—especially in the Western world. And death’s timing is uncertain: as you are reading this, you may stop breathing and die right now. Intellectually, we know that we may die someday, but we think that day is not going to be today, and we go on with our lives in a default mode of thinking that we will not die today.
How about we look at this just a little differently? How about we change our default mode to, “I may die today.” That does not mean I will die today, but just as the statement says, I may die today. If someone gives us a certain date, let’s say one week from now, when we will die for sure, how does that change our day-to-day decisions? Do we worry about someone who cut us off in traffic? Do we worry about small things that we argue about with our friends and families?
Let’s contemplate this and see how we can change our decisions based on the fact that we may die today. Please choose any meditation from Appendix 1 that you’ve found helpful. If you don’t have a preference, just continue in a series. Once you find the peace within, then contemplate for a minute, “I may die today.”