Death

Morbid though it is, I’ve been thinking a bit about death. More specifically its use in encouraging people to think about life – “Live every day as if it’s your last!”. I don’t know about you but I find death a very hard topic to contemplate. I don’t feel at ease with it, I feel, well, scared to death! And much as death and its inevitability are a pretty good reason to live life to the full, I find I can’t make it a personal reference point without feeling somewhat sick in the pit of my stomach.

So when I’m encouraged to think about my life and consider how happy I would be about what I’d achieved if I was going to die tomorrow I don’t get a sense of empowerment I get a sense of utter panic. I don’t think about looking back and feeling satisfaction I think about my children and what I’d miss. Even though I know it’s not for real, I don’t think about taking stock and cracking on with things I think about how if I die suddenly I won’t know anything about it and my darker side comes out and asks what the point is. Oh and if I am going to pretend it’s my last day, I have lots of goodbyes to say which will take up quite a lot of time.

Not wanting to sound flippant, I assure you I get that the idea is to see life as it is, as a short, sweet experience which you can either live without thought or do your utmost to squeeze every last ounce of whatever it is you want from it. But for me the motivation comes from the small steps, the little things, the slow, slow, slow enjoyment of time. The “live life as if you might die tomorrow” approach triggers a panicky impatience in me which doesn’t allow things to develop slowly and carefully. Our business has taken 10 years to get to the point where we feel we are starting to achieve really exciting, life changing things yet I don’t feel we have wasted time.

I watched a film recently, not a challenging film, a daft, brain oozing out of your ears film, where a man is given a remote control (yep, you’ve seen it!) to play around with time. He finds himself wishing away great chunks of his life chasing promotions and is left at the end of it an old man who has missed his children growing up and all those little details of life that are so important. I understand that this is it. This is my life and I get one chance and once it’s over it’s over. I’m not sitting around waiting for things to happen for me, I’m making things happen for myself. But I have to be careful that I don’t succumb to the constant feeling that things aren’t happening fast enough. There seem to be two things wrong with this. Firstly I want to live in the present, be present, appreciate what I have and feeling impatient muddies that. Secondly I certainly don’t want to wish my life away. I have two amazing children and I want to enjoy them being children as long as possible and assume I’ll have plenty of tomorrows with them.

Simon and I laugh about his dad’s constant references to time passing. At each milestone event through the year, birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, he always says “well, that’s another year over…”. It feels as if he’s counting down the years to his eventual demise without so much as a backward glance. Much as I appreciate the importance of making the very most of life (and acknowledging the obvious fact of death is a part of that) I plan to live as if I’m going to be around for ever. For me that’s way more exciting than thinking it might all end tomorrow.