Death Is the Ultimate Deadline
No exceptions
I was at a party recently sitting across from my sister Sandra, aka Dr. Mini, talking about this and that when, out of the blue, she said “Swallow.” From her expression, I knew she’d turned from sister to doctor.
“You have a small bulge on your neck. You oughta have it checked out,” she said. After palpating the area and asking a couple of questions, she declared that it was probably a nodule on my thyroid.
Several days later, an ultrasound revealed that it was indeed a nodule, one that warranted an ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNA*).
And needing such a procedure reminded me of death, my death, your death, the death of a species, the death of those already gone, and the unavoidable future death of everyone still with us.
I thought of my death with some dread. The dread was not about the dying process or about ceasing to exist, but about living my short existence without meaning, without making decisions with the understanding that there is a deadline that is both universal and personal.
Regret and Death Awareness
My dread of death is linked to a fear of regret, specifically, what author Daniel Pink calls boldness regrets, those we inwardly bemoan with the thought: “If only I’d…
