Let’s plan for death by living now
Many lead their lives in regret of the past, confusion about present, and fear of the future. Frustration at the moment of death is a natural by-product of such a missed life. If one lives his or her life wholly and responsibly, then, as Mark Twain said the man who lives fully is prepared to die any time. A director of a government company who lives a conscious life is prepared to vacate his flat, and retire with grace and dignity.
Life is tough, even for the successful and famous. I once heard an anecdote of Mr Life’s conversation with Mr Death. “Why do people love me and hate you?” asked Life and Death replied, “Because you are a beautiful life, and I am a painful truth.” Sylvia Plath was a highly acclaimed American writer and poet, and a winner of Pulitzer Prize. Still at the young age of thirty, she committed suicide. Ironically, she had said in one of her works, “Dying is an art, like everything else.” Ernest Hemingway, another successful novelist and Nobel Prize winner shot himself dead, after having tried to end his life, a few times earlier as well. He too had said earlier that although details vary, all our lives end the same way.
If Mr. Rahman, during his forty years of service had planned and invested in a house that he’d settle in eventually, he would have happily vacated the old house on retirement. Similarly if during our sojourn in this world, we plan and invest daily, for a life after death, we’ll be ready when old age, diseases and death eventually strike. We’ll happily leave this world to a life of eternity, freedom and bliss. Emily Dickinson said it poetically, “Because I could not stop for death, He kindly stopped for me; the carriage held, but just ourselves and immortality.”
