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Life lessons from the death bed

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Re: Life lessons from the death bed

#141

Post by RHSman2 »

latexr wrote: post #29
taneq wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to balance risk and reward. Getting to the end and telling everyone to take more risks just because you personally have nothing to lose, or the risk worked out for you, is just lotto winners telling everyone to buy lotto tickets.

Exactly. We act as if people on their death beds have some unique insight on how to live a good life. They don’t. The same thoughts will reach you if you think enough about your death while you’re alive and healthy. Saying you can’t take you money with you (quote at the top) is a platitude. You can’t take anything with you, be it money, memories, good deeds, or consequences. You’ll be dead. You’ll lose everything equ…

You can conceptually understand death but you do not know it because you don’t experience it’s ‘ground rush’. So I disagree.

Re: Life lessons from the death bed

#142

Post by pxoe »

robviren wrote: post #28

I always struggle with balancing the advice given in pieces like this. The author suggested that they "eat their cake today" suggesting that putting off pleasure is a useless denial. Death could come for us at any moment, but I can't live like I'm dieing every day. There is just a mountain of nuance and self reflection between living some bohemian lifestyle where every moment must be filled with something and some st…

sometimes people quite literally settle for something worse or just 'mediocre', when they could have something good, something better, something they actually wanted and desired. but nope, people settle for something middling 'for the time being'. and then never get that good, great thing. sometimes that never becomes quite literal. and then, the things that get put off, become irrelevant, truly and on many levels - they're irrelevant in death, and irrelevant to anyone else living who doesn't care for it even a bit.

it doesn't have to be a cake, but ffs, stop refusing yourself what's better when that option is literally just there. and sometimes those options are free.

(and hey, if 'better' is actually 'not having cake' - maybe it is just that for you. sometimes that death recontextualization makes things seem irrelevant in that way - why do something at all when it literally will not matter, and doesn't matter on any scale of the days really)

Re: Life lessons from the death bed

#143

Post by RHSman2 »

christoph wrote: post #19
barrkel wrote: post #4

Nice vignettes but I don't really believe it. Not knocking those getting value out of them, but they don't work for me.

The best changes I’ve made in my life are 1. Completely removing alcohol. 2. Removing highly processed foods and refined sugars. 3. Accepting myself for who I am, faults and all. I can’t change certain things about myself, so I just need to accept that and focus on the things I can change. Maybe I can’t change them today or tomorrow, but I can always work towards future change. And the most important for me of all -…

I found 1 really helped 3. I know longer had an excuse of alcohol creating a version of me. I just have said traits.

And then I got to work more on those.

Re: Life lessons from the death bed

#144

Post by RHSman2 »

christoph wrote: post #19
barrkel wrote: post #4

Nice vignettes but I don't really believe it. Not knocking those getting value out of them, but they don't work for me.

The best changes I’ve made in my life are 1. Completely removing alcohol. 2. Removing highly processed foods and refined sugars. 3. Accepting myself for who I am, faults and all. I can’t change certain things about myself, so I just need to accept that and focus on the things I can change. Maybe I can’t change them today or tomorrow, but I can always work towards future change. And the most important for me of all -…

Have you read ‘The Way of the Peaceful Warrior’ by any chance?

Re: Life lessons from the death bed

#145

Post by latexr »

RHSman2 wrote: post #141
latexr wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. We act as if people on their death beds have some unique insight on how to live a good life. They don’t. The same thoughts will reach you if you think enough about your death while you’re alive and healthy. Saying you can’t take you money with you (quote at the top) is a platitude. You can’t take anything with you, be it money, memories, good deeds, or consequences. You’ll be dead. You’ll lose everything equ…

You can conceptually understand death but you do not know it because you don’t experience it’s ‘ground rush’. So I disagree.

> but you do not know it

Neither do people on their death beds.

> because you don’t experience it’s ‘ground rush’.

Death isn’t a spectrum. By that logic, someone who almost died because of a car accident has better insights than someone in a hospice withering over months or years. A person who began pondering their own mortality a week ago because they got terminally ill doesn’t have more valid insights on life and death than a moderately healthy person who has been thinking about the subject every day for two decades.

Re: Life lessons from the death bed

#146

Post by mensetmanusman »

hotpotamus wrote: post #105
hypeatei wrote: post #45

I'm of the belief that life is inherently suffering and really has no meaning. You can give your own meaning to it but it all seems pointless. (as I get ready for work to sit at a desk for 8 hours)

Samesies, and man it sure seems like everyone who doesn't realize this has it easy. Like, people will say that you're depressed, but I'm pretty sure it's just rational.

If nothing matters, you would adopt a worldview that that isn’t hopeless to reduce feelings of depression. That would be the most logical thing to do, so in that sense your belief is irrational.

Re: Life lessons from the death bed

#147

Post by mensetmanusman »

acuozzo wrote: post #129
mensetmanusman wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Devout Catholic families that attend weekly mass and have daily family prayer typically discuss vocations enough that teenagers internalize the various adventures in front of them (single life, religious life, married life, etc).

Meh, I imagine there are many "devout" Catholic families like mine that go through all of the motions, but never even think of religion outside of the periodic rituals.

I think people are swimming in it not realizing. Intentional thought is not required.

Good lecture by a Greek/Rome Historian: https://youtu.be/cDa4vpkNKeQ

Re: Life lessons from the death bed

#148

Post by mensetmanusman »

PopAlongKid wrote: post #115
mensetmanusman wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ingraining the ‘parable of the workers at the vineyard’ has been phenomenal at engraining gratitude for my kids. American’s default view of ‘fairness’ can be incredibly corrosive.

>‘parable of the workers at the vineyard’ Hearing that parable at Sunday mass multiple times as a youngster is one of the reasons why I stopped going to church at age 14 and have never been back. >American’s default view of ‘fairness’ can be incredibly corrosive. Can you elaborate on what this default view is? For example, Americans seem to have no problem with someone becoming a near-billionaire overnight from winni…

One level of the parable is around eternal gratitude. Probably the idea of gratitude didn’t cause you to stop, but catechesis in the US post WW2 was poor (to say it charitably), so your response wasn’t out of the ordinary.

American’s view of fairness breeds envy. Across every income level a vast majority want 10% more to be ‘happier.’ Once you have this ego death of sorts, it lets you easily step off the hedonistic treadmill, thus improving one’s life :)

Re: Life lessons from the death bed

#149

Post by jplrssn »

acuozzo wrote: post #125
jplrssn wrote: post #36

Great read. As with everything, balance is key. But I’ve never heard of anyone on their deathbed wishing they’d spent less time with family and friends, and more time grinding away at work.

> I’ve never heard of anyone on their deathbed wishing they’d spent less time with family and friends, and more time grinding away at work Sampling bias? Those wishing to have spent more time with family & friends likely have family & friends to posthumously share their deathbed story.

Yes maybe. But these deathbed regrets can also be shared by hospice staff [1] and volunteers and the like, some of whom arguably are more likely to spend time with patients who don't have family there.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-fiv...

Re: Life lessons from the death bed

#150

Post by hotpotamus »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #146
hotpotamus wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Samesies, and man it sure seems like everyone who doesn't realize this has it easy. Like, people will say that you're depressed, but I'm pretty sure it's just rational.

If nothing matters, you would adopt a worldview that that isn’t hopeless to reduce feelings of depression. That would be the most logical thing to do, so in that sense your belief is irrational.

Pardon? I don't know what hope has to do with this.
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