Life's Greatest Lessons From Dying People

The unsolicited realization of having limited time left evoked by the diagnosis of some terminal illness can elevate a human to a whole new level of awakening.

It can bring our focus to the domains of our lives that we have never bothered paying attention to while at the same time giving us freedom from all the trivial worries vying for our attention.

To put this idea in better words, let me quote Confucius

We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only have one.

The inception of such realization can mostly be credited to callous and demanding times. It can transpire from anything like being diagnosed with a critical illness, passing away of a dear one, or even a breakup from a toxic relationship.

These strenuous times can force us to reconsider our trajectory in life.

A similar realization emanating from an emotionally overwhelming experience in 2016 marked the genesis of HappinessDhaba. But that’s not the topic of discussion today. Let’s leave that story for some other day.

Nevertheless, these are the junctures in life that drive us into thinking.

Into thinking that,

Is this all I want from my life?

They help us better understand ourselves by helping us know ― what drives us, what inspires us, and what excites us.

In fact, I believe that these are the moments that are potent enough to become the threshold point of the second life mentioned in Confucius’ quote above.

No No you don’t need to get a death sentence or intentionally induce suffering into your life to learn these lessons. You can read stories of people who have gone through such onerous times.

To ease your efforts, here I am sharing the 5 greatest life lessons from the life of 3 dying humans. Out of these, 2 are from real-life stories and 1 is from fiction.

5 Greatest Life Lessons from The 3 Dying Humans:―

Morrie Schwartz ― From Tuesdays with Morrie

Tuesdays with Morrie is a memoir on the 14 enlightening Tuesdays that the author Mitch Alom spent with his terminally ill professor, Morrie Schwartz.

They together called this book their “Final Thesis together”. The book is full of life-enriching lessons. It’s, in fact, a life coach in itself. Morrie’s take on life has some really good life lessons on offer.

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1: The Realization That We Are Going To Die & How To Use it as a Tool To Grow:―

We all know we are going to die, so life is a limited period offer for us Humans.

Morrie believed that being ready for death actually helps in getting more involved in our lives.

Now, you must be thinking, how we can be ready for death? Don’t worry he had suggested the way too.

In his words,

Every day, have a little bird on your shoulder that asks,
Is today the day?
Am I ready?
Am I doing all I need to do?
Am I being the person I want to be?

Am I being the person I want to be?

I found this technique really head-on. We all often waste so much time on useless things. If we can keep reminding ourselves that we have limited time, we can definitely be more productive.

To inculcate in me, this habit of reminding myself, I have written these words of Morrie on the whiteboard in my room.

When I wake up in the morning, wear my spectacles, the 1st thing I see is these words from Morrie. This way I’m reminded throughout the day that there is no time to waste.

#2: The Idea of Hosting Get-Togethers from Morrie’s idea of Living Funeral:―

The idea struck Morrie’s mind when one of his colleagues died and he went to attend his funeral. He saw people saying all sorts of wonderful things about his deceased friend.

This really depressed him because he thought what’s the use of saying such things after the person has died. Inspired by his thought, he decided to host his “Living Funeral”, so that he gets to know what his family and friends think about him while he is still alive.

Though we cannot organize “Living Funerals” as not everyone gets to know that they are going to die soon. But we can definitely host “Get-Togethers” every now and then and speak good things about each other.

TakeAway ― Let us learn to show affection for our fellow humans while they are still alive.

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Chris McCandless’ story too taught us that Happiness is only real when shared. Do check out the lessons I learned from the book Into The Wild.

Veronica ― From Veronica Decides To Die

Veronica, a 24-year-old character in Paulo Coelho’s Veronica Decides To Die has everything that an ordinary human longs for. Despite being well-equipped with all the worldly comforts, she is not at all happy and is fed up with a life where one day is exactly like the other.

In search of an escape from the tragedy of repetitive existence, she decides to terminate her life. In a dramatic turn of events that follow, she ends up in a mental hospital where she is told that the sleeping pills she took have cut short her life span and she would die in a few days.

While waiting for her doomsday, she meets people who completely change her perspective towards life and reinvigorate in her a desire to stay alive.

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#3: The Importance of Escaping the Rules’ Paradox:―

Society had more and more rules, and laws that contradicted the rules, and new rules that contradicted the laws. People felt too frightened to take even a step outside the invisible regulation that guided everyone’s lives.

Conquered by the fear of being wrong, of not doing what’s expected of us, we diligently start following the nonsensically designed manual of good behavior.

What’s ironic is that despite knowing that right and wrong is a subjective matter, we often fall into the rules’ trap. What may be a well-accepted rule of society today, is very likely to turn out into a source of laughter for the coming generations.

So, inhibiting our lives for the sake of appeasing the meaningless societal establishments is equivalent to digging our graves while we are still alive. To corroborate my words, let me quote Yuval Noah Harari in his book Homo Deus: A brief History of Tomorrow,

“The greatest scientific discovery was the discovery of ignorance. Once humans realized how little they knew about the world, they suddenly had a very good reason to seek new knowledge, which opened up the scientific road to progress.”

Unless and until we accept that our current values are deeply inveterated with ignorance, We can’t walk the path of progress.

#4: You Can’t Give Up on your Life for an Impossible love:―

We can’t use an Impossible Love as an excuse, a pretext for breaking ties with life.

There are times in life when your love for someone cannot be realized into anything meaningful. It hurts but there is not much you can do about it. Neither you are the first one to experience it nor will you be the last.

When that happens, all you are left with is, the following two options to choose from:

Either to waste your life thinking, What if I had fought a little harder?, and keep dwelling rest of your life in the disappointment of The Impossible Love.
or,
Channelize that frustration into creating something meaningful.

The 1st lot of people become embittered and end up plunging into depression or develop self-destructive tendencies whereas from the 2nd lot arise people like Shiv Kumar Batalvi and France Prešeren who ended up producing some of the finest poetries and created a whole legend around their names. I’m too taking the 2nd path 😉

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Randy Pausch ― From The Last Lecture

Randy Pausch was a professor of Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction and Design at Carnegie Mellon University.

After being diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer, a terminal disease, more than anything else, Randy was terrified at the fact that his three small children would only have vivid memories of their father when they are grown-ups.

So, when invited for The last lecture, Randy wanted to convert his last chance into something meaningful that could continue to serve as a good reference for his children growing up in his absence.

He gave the Lecture, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.”

Though Randy lost his battle with cancer, his “lessons on living” won the internet and continues to be the guiding light for thousands like me.

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#5: Time is All You Have:―

Time is all you have and one day you may realize you have less than you think.

Randy encouraged students to refrain from investing too much time in irrelevant details. He used to say, it doesn’t matter how well you polish the underside of the bannister.

And that’s so true. We all waste so much time on trivial things, We waste our precious time watching senseless web shows, following and fighting over celebrities and petty politicians we don’t even know in real life and will most probably never get to know. All these things even after knowing that we have limited time.

I often feel that Time is the most under-valued currency known to humans. In fact, we don’t even consider it to be a currency.

To corroborate my argument let me quote, Cal Newport in the book Digital Minimalism,