Belief: Dying to Live
[Exploring Life] How do our beliefs change when we are faced with our own mortality? Our lives are fragile and inexorably transient. Our presence will transform when we die. The nature of our transformation at death is an unknown and, in spite of our proficiency in creating fanciful stories that propose an explanation and perhaps even comfort, there is no evidence of what actually happens to us. The unknown is something that can inspire breathtaking levels of fear and anxiety within. The mystery of our own death is perhaps one of our most intense sources of fear in life. Yet it is while we are walking through the terrain of this universal mystery, this uncomfortable landscape of fear, that the essence of our beliefs becomes strikingly clear and coherent. The subtle approach of our own mortality brings tremendous clarity and transparency to our lives.
There is a kind of threshold that many of us will enter into, a landscape of experience that is defined by an overwhelming awareness that death is approaching and our time in this life is coming to an end. The amount of time we will remain in this threshold is not apparent to us, it may be hours, days , weeks, perhaps even months. What is apparent, however, is that the nature of our beliefs we have lived by in our lives are exposed in the midst of this, and we are completely immersed into the most practical and authentic philosophical moments in our lives. During this time we realize that all we have, all we have ever really had, in our lives is our beliefs. We innately wish our lives to have been meaningful and purposeful, yet sometimes we find ourselves near the end of days facing a wall of regret.
The Beauty of Regret: In her article Regrets of the Dying Bronnie Ware lists five of the most prevalent forms of regret she collected through her work in palliative care:
1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
In my own experiences with the dying, I too have felt the regret of “I wish I had…” or “If only I had of…” – those parts of their lives they forgot to live. This is not to say, however, that the dying feel nothing but regret, nor is it to say that they pass away with these feelings unresolved. As we read the five statements of regret above, we may feel a deep sense of familiarity with them, that is, the reverberation of these statements finds meaning within us even though we are not yet in the midst of our own end of days. We know they lead to truth, yet we may turn and look in other directions and prefer to delay the reality they speak until we ourselves have no choice.
If regret is to have meaning, value, and purpose, then it is the transformation of regret into belonging that inspires beauty. Regret is a form of isolation, division, and separation. The mind is drawn into thoughts of remorse for that which we consider lost forever. Time is relentless and once it passes by there is no way to reclaim it. The future by definition can never arrive. All we have is what we can simply call “right now” or perhaps more spiritually, the “present moment.” If we belong to the past or the future then we remain separated from right now. This in spiritual terms is the difference between being trapped by incessant thinking and being keenly aware and attentive to the present moment.
The immensity of our end of days, however, informs us the the amount of “present moments” we have left is coming to an end. The expanse of the future seems to be imploding all around us. Our time in this life has been used up, and there is now not enough time left to be what we need to be. In all probability we have learned that with the retreat of our health comes the retreat of our freedom. The assumption of doing simple things such as taking care of our own needs gradually morphs into increasing reliance on others. There is a sense that we will leave this world just as dependent on our loved ones as when we opened our eyes for the first time.
The Transformation of Regret: Regret hides, deep within its mercurial boundaries, an immense sense of beauty. Each of Bonnie Ware’s five regrets is ultimately a sacred insight into the nature and essence of living that has been provided to us by those that know far more about life than we can, at this point in our lives, pretend to. The dying are our most trusted, gifted, and sincere mentors and we should hold them in the highest possible reverence and regard. They can teach us and help us in ways no other can, and by offering our presence to them, by simply being with them during their end of days journey, we provide them with our most trusted and sincere gift. The beauty within the five regrets is simply this:
- Live the life you wish to live and remain true to your spirit.
- Cultivate your spiritual vocation in all aspects of life, especially your work.
- Live a vibrant life of creativity, art, and expression.
- Nurture belonging in all aspects of life.
- Happiness is a personal choice not an entitlement. Choose happiness.
There is an immense landscape of exploration with each of those five. Unfortunately, as I look back on them they also seem to retrieve the stain of new age fodder and the endless parade of banal lists offering the “essential” to dos, should dos, and must dos served up by aspiring and often self-proclaimed “experts” and “gurus.” At the same time, the triviality of rampant commercialism that obsessively reduces experience to sets of lists should not be confused with the immense value being provided by Bonnie Ware. I would describe her five regrets as being essential points of departure for a personal exploration into the beliefs which guide and perhaps prohibit us from living in a vibrant and expressive manner.
The world we have created for ourselves is mired in contradictory belief systems. The structure and requirements of our societies do not always promote nor encourage us to live in the manner described above. Work is often degraded to nothing more than making money in order to meet the basic requirements of survival in modern society. In other words, embracing work that is simultaneously our vocation is an immensely difficult, but not impossible, challenge. Society also fragments our time through unfounded assumptions such as the immensely immature notion that we all should work at least five days per week for at least eight hours each day. This kind of silent expectation is a clear and present sign of a society that is both immature as well as a little daffy. It’s hard to believe that this is really the best we can do.
Perhaps it is the immense wisdom of the dying that will be a precious source of renewal for us as individuals and as a society. The nature and character of belief itself takes on an incredibly sense of purity and truth. The world has enough theories and ideologies to perpetuate arguments for ions. What we are in desperate need of is wisdom; not the wisdom found in the writing of individuals who seem to be more interested in creating twisted mazes of written complexity and confusion rather than offering simple clarity and insight. There are other more essential sources of wisdom, and perhaps we should reconsider waiting until we face our own end of days before embracing it.
I was present with my mother throughout her end of days and the moment she took her final breath: it was a deep breath after which she embraced a profound stillness. The energy that inspired her life had moved on. She was a person, though with challenges like all of us, who was full of life. And like all of us, she had regrets about things left undone or not done in life. The wisdom of the dying is revealed in the immense beauty of their beliefs as they journey toward their last and final breath. The real question is, “Did I really listen?”