1 Mortality Salience

We all know this hurdle. The need to get started. For example, I put off writing this newsletter for days, and you might be wondering why? I was afraid of making a fool of myself. But then I remembered this quote:

And that's what I did. That led me to today's topic: Mortality Salience – the awareness that death is inevitable.

We recently discussed this topic in one of our lectures, and you may have already heard about it. There's this hype on social media at the moment about reminding yourself that you're going to die. And shock – it's actually true: You Are Going To Die. One day. You might have fifty-five years left. Or twenty. It depends on your health, your genes and also a bit of luck.

So, your consciousness about your death. It means that nothing matters. If you are going to die, why should you care about life at all? Would life only be meaningful if you were "the best" at something? The greatest singer, the fastest sprinter, a scientific record breaker? Absolutely not. That is not the case. We are human beings. We worry, far too much. Or at least we worry too much about the uncontrollable, when we should be focusing on what we can do now. You have to create your own meaning.

I encourage you to put yourself in the following situation:

1. Please describe the feelings that the thought of your death triggers in you.

2. Please write down as well as you can what you think will happen to you when you die.

You will feel like I do, namely numb. You might imagine how you might die, what might tear you apart, the agony you would suffer or how you would suffer in silence. But do you feel it? Do you feel how your heart would stop beating, how the blood would rush out of your body? Most probably not. You are not able to experience the emotions of death. You experience feelings of shock or isolation. Feelings of fear or intense sadness as soon as you think of the people you would lose or who would lose you.

The mere thought of death triggers a strong psychological reaction in us. So how can the awareness of death contribute to caring about life? Or at least, what's the point of caring about your life if it's guaranteed to end? It's quite simple.

Death gives us the meaning and purpose of life. We know we are going to die, so we look for purpose. If we didn't die, our analysis of the meaning of life would be different. Or would it be? Life is meaningful, death is not. So is the connection between life and death wrong? Do we not care about death and go our way, do our best and fully engage in the journey? You're going to die, so why not do whatever?

What I'm saying is. Start creating your own journey. Whether it's inspired by the pure fear of death or the meaningfulness of the journey. And if you start today, you'll be quite a bit further along in creating the life you want. In future newsletters, we will talk about exactly that. How to create your ideal lifestyle.

I hope you've taken away some interesting thoughts today.