Dying two deaths

Your life is calling you to depth.

A friend sent me this Instagram post this morning (the full text below or click here to read the rest in Instagram):

Click here to read in Instagram

The post continues:

At a deathbed, if my patient can communicate, they show they’re dying two deaths: the one they’re dying & then the death of the life they really wanted to live.

But in their dying, some are also free. To tell me who they are. What they wanted. Who they had to hide. Finally free.

Once my patient as he was dying told me something like this: “What was I so afraid of? All the people that I lived for are dead now too.”

This is a morbid thought, harsh, & very real.

I catch their dying dreams as they sail off into the unreturned. I am a last witness.

Not everyone is able to fully embody themselves, achieve their dreams, pursue their goals, for all sorts of reasons, systemic & traumatic.

I hope to fight & right these inequities.

And at death, if I can help my patient be themselves, even for the briefest moment—I will.

I’ve said it before & will again:

I’ve heard so many regrets.

Please. I plead with you. Live deeply. You may be young now but it goes. Fast. It is a breath. Do not waste time on everyone else’s vision for you. I know it is not this easy. In all the ways you can, please be here.

The regrets of the dying

Bronnie Ware is an Australian nurse who spent several years working in palliative care, caring for patients in the last 3 to 12 weeks of their lives. She wrote a book about the most five most common regrets people had and what they would do differently:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

In November I wrote about my Uncle who raised me and his final regrets in Ending my 40s. He told me:

“I have one piece of advice for you: don’t wait for anything. I waited my entire life to do things, and now I can’t.”

I’ve had that ringing in my head ever since.

Your money or your life

Dying two deaths: the life you led and the life you wanted to lead. How could all of this not relate to money? I’ve been talking to a few people in their 50s and 60s this week. As they near retirement, they’re realizing they’ve worked hard and achieved, and bought nice things and had nice experiences, but all of it have been ways of running away from feelings they don’t want to feel. In other words, they’ve been, as J.S. Park’s Instagram post says, hiding from themselves. And a great fear arises, that when they quit working, they’ll face everything they’ve pushed away.

But, as Joseph Campbell said, the dark cave you fear to enter holds the prize you seek. On the other side of the feelings they’ve avoided is the life they really wanted to live. They had a craving to align and it never went away. The life you led and the life you wanted. For me, the fear and desire for intimacy. Thou Art That which you desire most.

My friend Vanda Marlow spend years working at the San Francisco Zen Hospice Center, serving people at the end of their lives. She went into coaching because she saw people arrive at end of life without having lived intentionally. The lives they led and the lives they wanted. Thou Art That which you desire most.

That’s the promise of financial freedom. It’s not about not having to work. It’s not even about living a life that preserves life for others in the future. It’s much deeper than that. It’s a radical idea and one you’ll want to push away, but getting straight with your personal finances becomes an opportunity to live into the Thou of yourself well before those last moments before dying. It’s a chance to feel what you’ve always really wanted, but felt it was too painful to ask for.

It takes time to let yourself experience yourself in full, and time is the last thing you’ve yourself. In this shallow society you are asked to skim the surface. What a waste. Your life is calling you to depth. Don’t wait, my Uncle says. Don’t wait. It won’t always be comfortable. But nothing good ever was.

"It seems to me, that if we love, we grieve. That's the deal. That's the pact. Grief and love are forever intertwined. Grief is the terrible reminder of the depths of our love and, like love, grief is non-negotiable." - Nick Cave

There are two deaths, but that means there are also two lives. Don’t live the first and miss the second. Getting right with money is part of that. It’s not too late. Whatever you desire most, Thou Art That. Choose.