An Annual Meditation on Death
Or — why I think about death on my birthday
Writing our life story backward
It is a recommended writing technique — one on which I’m taking a class at present: write backward. Write from the ending to the beginning. What is the happily-ever-after scene you want to conclude your story on? And then figure out how to get there.
What works for writing a fictional story applies equally well to writing the stories of our lives in, well, real life.
One of the reflection exercises we used in a class on Personal Leadership & Success in the Columbia EMBA program was to imagine the scene of our death. Imagine ourselves on our deathbed. What would we be grateful for? What would we regret? Who would we want by our sides? What would we have wanted to accomplish?
It may seem macabre. It is actually deeply life-empowering. The visualization puts into perspective what matters to us and how to reprioritize and rearrange our lives so that we can reach the ending that we want.
It may mean recommitting time to our families and taking a step back from the workplace. It may mean doubling down on a cherished dream, like writing a book or climbing a mountain, to leave no stone unturned in pursuing an ambition. It may mean learning a new…
