The meaning of life ?

Death has long been just around the corner for me, but I refuse to live in fear. Every morning that I wake up is a bonus ?

Blossoming

Death has long been just around the corner for me, but I refuse to live in fear. Every morning that I wake up is a bonus ?

?????

I practice a form of meditation and the teaching is that we are all energy and that when we die we join the energy that is all around us. We are just a drop in the ocean and eventually we join that ocean. The ancient egyptians tried to preserve what is on the outside, when really what matters is what is on the inside. The body is just a shell that will crumble one day but the lifeforce goes on and is constantly all around us. When we are born we take that first breath in and become an individual and when we die we take our last breath out. We should appreciate every breath until the last one. I find that comforting.

I do think about it often. I wonder which one of us will go first! I believe in an after life so not too worried, just don’t want to be unable to look after myself or be in a lot of pain.

It’s so interesting to read all your posts and thank you for calling me young 3nanny6! Grandmajet, I am so sorry about your life situation and hope you have love and support. I know the only way to find peace is to try and live in the present but I can’t help hoping that there might be something after we die. But even to think of it as change as Peasblossom writes makes me less afraid:

“Doesn’t St Paul say “I show you a mystery. We shall not die, we shall be changed”.

Once, not so long ago, the matter that made us existed in another form and then it changed and became an embryo and then a human being. And we grew and valued what we had become. So much that we don’t want it to change.

Don’t fear change -or death if you want to call it that. Who knows what wonderful new state awaits us!”

Emily if you don’t believe why would it worry you ?

I could die tomorrow from a random accident or a sudden medical emergency. I could have died yesterday from an accident or medical emergency, but didn’t. I’m glad to be alive today. That’s enough for me.

I've not feared death since my dear Gran had a near death experience. She said that she was walking along a tunnel towards a beautiful garden full of all the people she'd known. She was filled with happiness and was very upset when she was resuscitated and forced back to life.
Whatever the explanation the scientifically minded give for this it sounds lovely to me.
I do worry about what happens before then though. I fear unpleasant illness.
I could go tonight and know I'd done enough in life but I'd like to know more, to see more, to meet more people. I don't have much control really. Que sera sera.

Why worry about something that we have no control over. Cheer up, eat chocolate and have a G & T or three!!

Exactly PurplePixie !

TBH i am not bothered at all about dying,i worry more about the people i leave behind and how sad they will be,especially my 2 sons,2 dil`s and all of my grandchildren.
We are a very close family.
I do believe in the after life so i can watch them all from a lovely place.

Don’t think about it. We can’t do anything about it. I feel that nature wastes nothing so who knows. I know lots of people who didn’t get old, so it’s a pity to worry about something you’ve no influence over.

I’m a Christian, so although I do sometimes fear how I’m going to die....actually dying doesn’t worry me.

I've just looked. This thread is called 'The meaning of life'

I have often wondered why people think there is a meaning to life. Our coming into being is the result of a single interaction between a man and a woman and the genes we inherit that make us who we are are a throughly random mix from both parents. Why should that result in the person that results being born into a life that has a meaning?

I have often thought about death these past 4 years since my DH was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer (actually we didn't realise the stage because he didn't want to dwell on it)
We had a few things on our bucket list and we managed to enjoy most of our time left together.
When he died in November he told me he would always be with me and our love wouldn't die.
Ofcourse I am missing him but I have no regrets. He died at home surrounded by his family.
I can think I will join him and I am certainly not afraid of that.
I maybe fear getting decrepit but all the DC have power of attorney so any decision about me can be passed to them.

As for what becomes of us: I do have a faith and believe that love is eternal. We become part of the stars.
Meanwhile I am careful to tie my laces and not take unnecessary risks.
Old age doesn't come easy and my MiL who is 96 says we just have to get on with it.
The meaning of life?:
If I knew that I would know the mind of God. "Stephen Hawking"

The thought of being dead doesn't worry me one bit but the prospective process of getting there has me a little concerned. I'm cowardly enough to hope for a very sudden and unexpected heart attack.

Kim19 For me it would be sitting in my favourite chair, and just falling asleep.
This apparently happened to an aunt recently. She was on her phone to her DD discussing Christmas presents for the DGC and she went quiet. She had had a stroke. She hadn't had a day's illness before. Not very nice for her DD but she was over 90.

Oh dear, I feel a little bit like this but only because I have been surrounded by people with ill health and death of loved ones for the last five years! It has been relentless and does start to play on your mind! I am trying to be more positive and tell myself I still have a lot of life to get on with, and I will!

I have had to suppress my negative feelings about life for many years. It makes no sense that we have this life, then have to leave our beloved families behind, and we are here for such a short time. I have occasionally tried to bring it up with some people, not necessarily family, but people don't seem to want to dwell on it, understandably so. How do we chase such negative thoughts away? I just don't get how we bring our kids into the world, to love and adore them, and then we have to leave, and my grandchildren, I want to see them grow up and what careers they have. Its a hard cycle to break, and I find it so hard not to dwell on. Any suggestions?

Well Bridget, it’s a really tough one if you have a mindset like ours. I didn’t used to be like this but growing older and seeing loved ones die (one quite young) has affected me; so understand where you’re coming from Shropshirelass. My mother who is 90 isn’t worried about death but she does have a faith. I know that I need to find something, be it God (I was raised Catholic and it’s in my bones) or learning from Buddhism. I wish I was one of these people who can accept there’s nothing they can do about it so they simply don’t think about it but I’m just not like that.

i don't know if it is relevant to some, but have you heard of the death cafe movement.
deathcafe.com/

Peasblossom

I’m not a Christian. It’s just scientific fact. The matter that makes us cannot be destroyed. It once was something else before it became us and will be something else when our body no longer exists.

The matter that makes us will take infinite forms. There is no “death”. Only change.

A couple of years ago my Grandson told me he hadn’t been sleeping well.
I questioned if he was worried about something, he said “No” then hesitated and told me he was worried about dying as he didn’t believe in God.
Even though I am a Christian, I told him, he didn’t need to believe in God and told him the scientific fact about energy.
He was quite satisfied with that explanation.

Thanks for the link welbeck, this looks really interesting. I think there needs to be more open discussion about death - people seem to shy away from it these days. And has anyone noticed how the word “death” seems to have been replaced by “passed away”? It seems to represent a denial of the fact that we all die!

timetogo2016

TBH i am not bothered at all about dying,i worry more about the people i leave behind and how sad they will be,especially my 2 sons,2 dil`s and all of my grandchildren.
We are a very close family.
I do believe in the after life so i can watch them all from a lovely place.

Exactly how I feel timetogo2016. I know the children and grandchildren will be so sad and I hate the thought of them missing me. Sometimes the loss of a parent can affect people deeply, and I worry about them especially DD2. I know she will be an emotional wreck. There is nothing you can do about this whilst you're alive!

I agree that as a society we don't talk much about death although it is inevitable and if we are a couple, one of us will be bereaved. A fact.
I was very glad that DH was able to come home from hospital to die and we were all with him. For my DC this was the first and only time they had been at a deathbed and like birth it was a natural process not a medical procedure.

I can't take away your preoccupation but can suggest you work through it, maybe by learning more, like you are doing here and you may arrive at a happier place.

To die would be an awfully big adventure. To live would be an awfully big adventure.

– Peter Pan (J.M. Barrie)