Small, Aint That Small At All

“Now, when death is no longer a remote possibility at some distant point in the future, but rather a constant probability with each passing day, most of the things that had seemed so desperately important to me as a younger man have faded to triviality.” - Charles Stibling

Small, Aint That Small At All

“It seems unfair that I could accumulate so much and yet will go to the grave taking none of it with me.”  Charles said to me.

Charles is wealthy, beyond almost everyone’s belief.  But, he was spending our time together telling me how unhappy he was.  He had spent his whole life accumulating money and things, only to find himself alone and wanting.  And, I was there to watch his process of recognizing that dying is a necessary part of every person’s life.  One way or another we will all die.

The question is not whether we will die. It is how we will die.  And, there I was seeing someone, face to face, realizing that it is impossible to reject this fact.  It is a fact that one cannot reject any more than one can reject one’s self.  So, I asked my self, what am I to learn from my experience with Charles?

At first I could not over come an all-consuming sense of despair as I looked at the pain I could see in his eyes.  But, then I realized that a simple shift in my perspective would easily blow the dark hanging cloud from the scene.  This lesson was indeed about choosing how I would die.

As I listened to Charles speak I could see that he was in the process of teaching me that how I decided to live my life would affect the way I would end it.  And, that simple mental shift allowed me to glean some life changing lessons that I could share with you. 

The first lesson is that there is necessary and unnecessary suffering.  Charles documented the way he had lived the “rules of our society” with exactness.  What he failed to see was that the rules he had followed were arbitrary rules designed by people.  They are not the natural order of things, universal law.  It made me ask, “Why am I doing what I do?  Is it to simply follow a societal norm or am I doing what I do to give me fulfillment now and in the future?”

Second, loss is one thing and regret is another.  Charles was in the process of spending his fortune in an effort to stop his feelings of regret.  The more he spent, the more money he lost.  But, no amount of spending or loss can offset regret.  There is no way a person can go back in time to say or do something they regret not doing in the past.  We should all ask ourselves what it is we will regret not doing if we were to find out we are going to die today.  We can avoid regret by paying attention to our decisions, one at a time.

Third, take a palliative approach to living.  Focus on what it is that provides you with relief.  When you’re in the process of discovering this don’t over look the insignificant or the simple.  Design your life toward it.  My friend Bill, from Ventura County, found that when he wasn’t living in a palliative way he was miserable.  So, he redesigned his life so he could surf every day.  As a result, his personal, family and professional lives are all thriving.  What is it that will provide a shock of beauty for you all the way to the end? 

Fourth, love such palliative moments and your life ferociously.  Just because we all must die doesn’t mean we need to live a life lacking imagination.  A focus on forces larger that ourselves will allow us to regain perspective along with a sense of daily awe.  How long has it been since you took the time to look up into the night sky to absorb the beauty of the stars?  Let yourself delight in the crazy grandeur of being alive.

Fifth, make the knowledge that we all will die an unbreakable bond between you and everyone else.  This one bond will open the door to greater humility and forgiveness, the ability to take friendships more seriously, be grateful you can feel pain (that you can feel anything at all), stop holding a grudge, realize what you’re doing in each precious moment, get in touch with the absurdity and silliness of it all, laugh at yourself and to come to terms with the fact that you can’t control everything.

Finally, my experience with Charles taught me that the object of each life is to live well and to create space to make life a process of crescendo all the way to the end, and that small things aint that small at all.