As a young girl at 14, I used to reminisce about the future, how badly I wanted to grow up, to drive, to be popular in high school, go to college and land an amazing job, have a huge home, nice cars, and an extremely handsome husband. The older I got, the more I began to realize all of the things I once desired for were not what I truly wanted. I began to realize the value of happiness, adventure, and creating memories rather than the value of temporary popularity, material items, and physical appearances. What I realized was that when one is lying on their deathbed, because the only thing guaranteed in life is death, they will not think, “oh what a lovely car I drove” but rather, “I remember when I went on my first road trip with my friends.” As mentioned in “Tuesdays With Morrie” by Mitch Albom, Morrie emphasizes the idea, “once you learn how to die, you learn how to live,” meaning, remembering that one day we will all depart from this world, one will realize what it truly means to live. Another pointer that can essentially alter one’s vision of living life: to live simply, as discussed in “Where I Lived and What I Live For” by David Henry Thoreau. Although thinking about death is a harsh reality on a young teenager, it is rather helpful to wrap our heads around it at a young age. Why? because as one grows older, they will see more death. Living a simple life may seem boring to a young teenager, but as one grows older and their schedules become bustled with work, and responsibilities, they will wish that they could step back, and choose a simple lifestyle.
What I found is that if one were to sit down, and think of their future realistically, they could certainly find an approach on life that will not cause one to regret the...
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...lead to stress-another thing that is so common. If one chose to live simpler lifestyles and slow down their lives a bit and relax rather than overwhelming themselves with so much, maybe they would be able to enjoy their lives more. Managing time will lead to extra time to go out and create memories, and focus on living and being happy. When one departs from this world, they will think of their past and recall memories and become content with they fact that they did not let their time slip away being overwhelmed and completely trapped in the world while working their lives away to simply satisfy their materialistic needs. One will look back and remember that they lived a life of meaning, a true everlasting joy to know that they lived a great life.
Works Cited
"Tuesdays With Morrie" by Mitch Albom
"Where I Lived and What I Lived For" by David Henry Thoreau
Professor Pausch said that “…it’s not the things we do in life that we regret on our deathbed, it’s the things we do not.” On Morrie’s deathbed he says to Mitch, “…because if you’ve found meaning in your life, you don’t want to go back” (Albom 118). Both of these quotes make you think about what the day will bring you and essentially allows you to ask questions like ‘who will I impact and what can I do to make a
“Learn to live a little!” Most people have heard this expression, but learning to live isn’t to just stop taking life seriously, it’s about learning how to die. This aphorism of learning how to die is how you learn to live is used again, and again throughout the book, “Tuesdays with Morrie”. First, Morrie shows how he learned how to live after dealing with ALS, which will slowly kill him. Second, people who are afraid and scared of death are the ones who will have unsatisfied and envious lives. Finally, The fact of how learning to die also has people become less ambitious about their job and becoming really wealthy, but instead focusing more on personal connections and relationships. In “Tuesdays with Morrie”, Mitch Albom
So many people have ideas of things they want to do, whether they be business-related, something that scares them or even just asking someone else out on a date. Everyone has ideas about how they want to live their lives, but most people never wind up following through. They are so afraid of failure or of looking bad that they run from any kind of challenge. Then later in life, when they realize that they had all these opportunities and never took ad...
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Even though I can be negative at times, I do have some situations where I think about my future. For example when I decided to leave to independent studies because I was always late, I was having problems at school and at home and it was very hard for me to focus on school. I thought if I left from regular school it could help me become more responsible and it could help me figure out what I wanted to major in. It was in independent studies that I found out that I really wanted to pursue a career in health. Another example where I thought about the future was when I took the CNA class; that is, I took the Certified Nursing Assistant course. At the end of my junior year I decided that I wanted to take the class because I could have better opportunities after high school and in my future career. The instructor Ms. Estrada had a meeting to see how many people were interested; in addition, she gave the class requirements. She said class was from 1:19 to 4:30, we had at least one test every week, and if you fail more than 3 tests you get dropped. At the end of the meeting she gave everyone a packet with medical terms that she wanted us to memorize. On the very first day she was going to test us; moreover, if we failed it we would get dropped. I was chosen to be in the class and it was the longest, most stressful year ever. I was ready to
Throughout the novel death is portrayed as normal, something not too worry about. An example of this is shown when the director takes the students through the facility, “Bernard, whispering, made an appointment with the Headmistress for that very evening, ‘from the Slough Crematorium. Death conditioning begins at eighteen months. Every tot spends two mornings a week in a Hospital for the Dying. All the best toys are kept there, and they get chocolate cream on death days. They learn to take dying as a matter of course’”(109). The portray death to children as relaxing and fun so they do not fear or get sad about deaths of a loved one. Another example of this is shown when the director talks about how everyone dies when they are sixty. The world state does this because when the are sixty they do not want to work or play their expensive games. During their life the always look you, they are fit, and healthy. The people in the world state see not having too grow old as a luxury. They see the elderly as gross, fat, disgusting creatures with growths and blemishes. Both of these views are highly contrasted with what the concepts of love and marriage are like in the world today. People view death as a new beginning. We believe that when we die our spirits go on into either heaven or hell based on our actions. This makes us strive to do good in the world so we would be compensated for our actions. Another example is that People view old age. As children we are taught to love and respect the elderly because the give the next generation values and morals to help guide their lives. We all honor the elderly with medical assistance and holidays made to celebrate
As we continue to grow old, we strive to live without regret, and to die without regret. As humans, we crave a fulfilled life. As we do so, we may lose what the concept of what that actually is. As mortals it is terrifying to think of dying with a mind clouded by the anguish of not being able to achieve a goal, not being able to drink from the Holy Grail so to speak. In our desperation to avoid such a fate, we delude ourselves into believing that we in fact are living a perfect life and when we die, we will die fulfilled when in reality, the mundanity of the truth is simply unbearable. We ignore any hesitancies that we may have concerning different aspects of our lives, to convince ourselves to move forward with our lives and, we as humans,
As we age, we take a journey though live that is uniquely ours. There is no one else who will have the same experiences that we do. These experiences shape our worldview and from this, we formulate our inherent values. Yet, as we start to face the reality of our own death, we tend to ask ourselves if we lived a good life. The question of a good life comes with sub questions such as we were successful, did we make meaningful relationships, and how will people remember us? The questions that asked need analyzation in order to determine if we have lived a good life and this paper will attempt to figure out what living a good life means.
As I grow older, I will attempt to create a life that I can look back on and think, “That was a life worth living.” Recently, my boyfriend’s grandfather passed away. He knew that his last day was near, but he kept saying that he was not sad, for he had lived a long full life (Matthew Morel, personal communication, February 2016). Contrarily, my grandmother, who is still living today, is obviously in a state of
Death is part of the circle of life and it's the end of your time on earth; the end of your time with your family and loved ones. Nobody wants to die, leaving their family and missing the good times your loved ones will have once you pass on. In the Mercury Reader, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross “On the Fear of Death” and Joan Didion “Afterlife” from The Year of Magical Thinking” both share common theses on death and grieving. Didion and Kübler-Ross both explain grieving and dealing with death. Steve Jobs commencement speech for Stanford’s graduation ceremony and through personal experience jumps further into death and how I feel about it. Your time is on earth is limited one day you will die and there are many ways of grieving at the death of a loved one. I believe that the fear of death and the death of a loved one will hold you back from living your own life and the fear of your own death is selfish.
In BJ Millers TedTalk, “What Really Matters at the End of Life?” BJ Miller discusses on how we think on death and honor life. He speaks to the audience about how for the most people the scariest thing about death is not death itself, it is actually dying or suffering. The targeted audience is everyone in the world, because eventually everyone is going to die and everyone thinks about death. BJ 3 has big points in the article saying, Distinction between necessary and unnecessary suffering. Also by having a little ritual that helps with this shift in perspective. Another point is to lift and set our sights on well-being. We need to lift our sights, to set our sights on well-being, so that life and health and healthcare can become about making life more wonderful, rather than just less horrible.
Lack of control over what needs to be done over time often stresses people. Stress is experienced by lack of time management skills and feelings of being overwhelmed by piles of work load that needs doing in little or no time. Being able to manage time is having control over time.
As a young girl, I always felt as if I had so much to do, but so little time to do it. I would always push things off until the next day thinking, “Oh there is always tomorrow, it can wait.” But once you see a life flash before your eyes, everything seems to change.
Time management cause major stress because half of the time it feels like there is not enough time to do anything that I enjoy or things that need to be done. I try to manage my time. The more I try to manage my time wisely I get stressed when things don 't get done according to the schedule or plan that I have planned for myself. Most people see it as controlling but I perceive it as working effectively. There are never enough hours in a day. Extracurricular activities, school, family, friends, church all take up time and it is very difficult to balance everything when there are only twenty-four hours in a day.
Living life to the fullest has different meanings to every person, and we all live our lives differently, but we all choose our outcomes. As writer Dylan Thomas writes about how to go against dying in his poem “Do not go gentle into that good night,” old men that are near their ends of living should resist death as much as they can, they should only go out kicking and screaming by raging “against the dying of the light.” On the other hand, Gwendolyn Brooks has a different perspective on living, in her poem “We Real Cool,” a group of kids does what they want when they want, getting into mischief for fun, leading them to “die soon.” Two different viewpoints but also two different scenarios. Thomas writes about one of his loved ones, specifically his father, who is a role model to him, and one part of