Anxiety

Fear of Death

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The fear of death grips all of us from time to time and although we resort to all manner of distraction to avoid thinking about it, death anxiety finds a way to bubble to the surface, really affecting the quality of our lives. It’s like a cloud blocking the warm rays of the sun.

How to make the cloud dissipate? One way is simply to recognize that worrying about something that is unchangeable is futile. Worry only serves a purpose when the outcome is uncertain, where focusing your time, energy, and thoughts on the problem can help you decide upon the best course of action to overcome it. In these cases you can think of worry as your friend since it helps you recognize that something is wrong and needs to be corrected.

But where death is concerned the outcome is not uncertain at all; it was decided at the moment of your birth. It’s a certainty forged in the contours of existence and the question is not if but when. While it’s obviously prudent to take the necessary steps to insure your continued good health and extend your life as long as possible, worrying about death in the ephemeral sense is completely pointless since your worry does nothing to change the inevitable.

Instead of spending all that psychic energy worrying about something you can’t possibly change, why not use it to enjoy your life to the fullest while you have the chance? If you’re reading this right now it means you’re alive. The time you have between now and the time of your death is going to pass one way or another, regardless of how much you kick and scream along the way. The only real choice you have is how you are going to be in the time allotted to you.

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