[pegasus]

In the end we all die. No more. What a terrible thing for all of us to go through and then we all have the same fate - death.

Morbid! Yes indeed but truthful nonetheless!

I'm struggling with this and yet there is no choice! I'm not looking for a religious answer here. I'm just thinking that there is no point. I'll do my best while I'm alive to help others but in the end... death, no more, gone and forgotten. It's yuck isn't it!

[NWgirl2013]

I'm sorry you are sad.

[roseblossom]

I struggle and worry over this at times too. I just hope that I have a peaceful death. I used to think there was something more, and would love there to be - that is something nicer, but it seems like a very remote possibility.

[wadingthruemotions]

Unless there is an accident or something I could not see at the time coming, I know how I will go out.

Life will not take me on her terms...I will go out on mine. No I am not saying I am suicidal or anything like that. I just know when the time comes it will be me who decides no one or nothing else.

On that note, yes it is a sad thing to think that we are all in this life, moving forward only to be moving toward the same damn end no matter what.

[lynn P.]

(((pegasus)) - you're not alone in worrying about this. I worry about becoming disabled from a stroke like my mother. I admit I'm afraid to die.

[liveforfish]

I have no fear of death. I know where I'm going so that takes the fear out of it.

[Odee]

I know.

This ultimately becomes the subject of almost every panic attack I have, even if it wasn't what started the anxiety.

There is so much more description I can add to these thoughts but it's not a good idea for me to do that. But, I agree, something about the struggle to eventually reach nothing ... depressing and terrifying.

[Aphrodites_Muse]

You are not alone. I often sink hard in this unforgivable cycle of thoughts. I am so sorry that you feel so sad right now.

[cool09]

I think what should be done is once you reach old age you shouldn't be rewarded with death you should be rewarded with eternal life for being a decent person and making it thru life. That makes much more sense to me. Being rewarded at the end with pain, torture, suffering, etc. doesn't make one bit of sense. But then again the World would be crowded...(or would it?)

[healingme4me]

I don't fear death. It's inevitable, yes. I choose to live, while I have Life.

[Maven]

Pegasus, I understand how you feel. I don't know what happens after we die, although I get offended when people claim to know what happens when they don't. You don't know, and I don't know. We only know what we believe. I believe maybe there's a God and an afterlife, but I also believe there may be nothing. I HOPE there is a wonderful afterlife and that I get to be part of it, something that doesn't require me to pick the "right" religion or the "One True God" or follow a very strict and restrictive set of rules.

It sucks to not know, yet in a way, it doesn't. Because while I'd like to know there's an afterlife filled with love, family, friends, and pets, I don't want to know that there's nothing.

People who have reported dying and having near-death or after-death experiences often give me hope, while at the same time, I think it's possible that's just something the brain does when we die, as some say. I hope, though, that there's more than just this life and that the afterlife is awesome.

[lemon80s]

To me it's a GREAT thing to know we all die eventually. And that maybe it doesn't matter so much.

I don't plan on quitting life, but the knowledge that at some point I will just lifts a burden. In the big scheme of things, it matters none what I do with this life. In a 150 years nobody that knew me will be alive. Maybe a grandkid of a person I touched by just existing. But it just doesn't matter.

That means there's all this space in my life to make this good for me, to experience the joy of living for me. I mean, dead is a rather boring and endless thing, so while I'm alive I should figure out how to make it awesome. Even now, when my life isn't as I want it to be, there's moments where I just stop in my tracks, look at the sky and realize I'm lucky to have this opportunity. I hope that I eventually create enough peace and free space in my brain to have more of these moments. And then there will eventually be death. Without it, the moments would probably not exist.

I used to be terrified of dying at one time but I am not anymore as I know that I have my 2 brothers and my mum on the other side..I am afraid of getting cancer though the thought terrifies me call me whatever but if I knew that I was dying of cancer then I would kill myself rather than suffer.

[beauflow]

Death isn't really what I have feared my life, it is going to happen - one way or another. Just my thoughts, never wanted to be immortal any ways.

Like others, I tend to worry much more on "when I get older what position will I be in?". I smoke over weight, I gotta change something today so the path down the road wont be so hard.. That's another thing, me thinking of me being 60 is really hard.... but since I've past 25 it is probably more possible than what I think.

((((Pegs)))) many hugs and good thoughts

It sucks some times when I think on this of -- wow, had a "wonderful start" into this world with the family I was born into, then I had struggles as a teenager and adult.. and then I will die... what a life

BUT Pegs I think that is me getting tunnel visioned-- there have been many good things in my life, even if at times I am blind sided by that. I have learned, grown, and met nicer people, have met not so nice people and still learned. I have changed my thoughts with in, i have grown as a person.. those things are important to me. I did not turn out like some others (siblings or parents) -- I turned out to be me.

As with you, -- has there been people that have made your journey of life a bit better?
(I think with what you have shared with some of us-- yes you have at least one if not a few others). You have went through years of therapy and some parts have gotten better in your life.

I think that is the important thing to look at-- the growth, the healing, the able to be you and a good being

's

[poptart316]

I think about death a lot and how one day I'm going to be nothing and try to imagine what nothing is like, which is impossible I know, but it still freaks me out.

I also think about how cats are going to die one day.. they are such wonderful creatures so full of life and one day they'll be gone.. but then I also try to think about how they perceive the world, they don't think about death.. they just live totally in the moment and that makes me feel better and also makes me wish that I was a pampered house cat.

I feel that life is for spending, and I spend it wastefully, like a drunk poet on payday.

I struggle too much to have a life to worry about dying though. I think if I became settled and worry free then I would start thinking about death.

Death is also an essential part of life. It means change, rebirth. It allows for new life and new ideas where otherwise there would just be tired old life, stagnant and inflexible.

Early on in our evolutionary cycle we chose the ability to reproduce over the ability to live forever. Don't ask me how, but apparently this was a fork in the road and we veered towards reproduction, which is of course the best method to ensure species survival. It's decentralised, prosperous life and it's much harder to annihilate that way.

Death seems a necessary part of life. Without it you wouldn't be here in the first place.

Originally Posted by pegasus

In the end we all die. No more. What a terrible thing for all of us to go through and then we all have the same fate - death.

Morbid! Yes indeed but truthful nonetheless!

I'm struggling with this and yet there is no choice! I'm not looking for a religious answer here. I'm just thinking that there is no point. I'll do my best while I'm alive to help others but in the end... death, no more, gone and forgotten. It's yuck isn't it!

I am exactly where you are with your thinking. I will also add that I don't see the point of it all.

[spondiferous]

I'm 50/50 on this. Sometimes I find it very comforting to know that one day, regardless of how my life has gone, it will be over. But for the most part I tend to view death as a mystical experience. It's a total mystery. Sometimes I'm okay with that. Sometimes I'm not. When I'm not, I have to distract myself. When I am, I feel part of me open up inside and get closer to the mystery.

[Travelinglady]

Yes, Pegasus, in the end we die. But I am glad that I lived. I happen to believe in an afterlife. But even if I'm wrong, I am happy I had the opportunity to be in this world. I have had some bad experiences, but yet I have had some great experiences, too.

[Maven]

I hate that my fear of dying keeps me from living. I get panicky going over bridges and have avoided tunnels for many years now. Just driving a short distance from my home can make me panicky, although I've been able to get myself to do it at a limited distance. It angers me that I have to feel this panicky feeling, even though I know it's extremely unlikely I'm going to die in that moment. And I can calm myself down from one panicky moment, only to have it re-surge seconds after the last panic attack. Why do I have to live life in constant fear? I want to enjoy the views, the adventures, the rides and life itself. I don't want a wasted life, and isn't that what's happening to me? Or am I doing it to myself? I don't know how to make the panicky feelings stop and I don't know how to just do stuff like a normal person. I don't enter contests where a plane trip is part of the prize, like a vacation, or other things that present fright for me.

[Perna]

Ah, but right now, you are not dead. That's all we ever have, right now.

Do you not think about favorite authors' books or your grandmother or great aunt Matilda or what your teacher in primary school told you that changed your life? My present life is very influenced by those that have gone before and I have faith that my own life will be remembered occasionally by those that come after, some alive now and perhaps some not alive yet; some I know and some I have yet to meet and I look forward to meeting those "new" people and seeing how they will influence my life and imagining about how I may have influenced theirs or, being told by them.

My stepmother had a good friend from the 1940's who became a "family" friend and whom I knew as Aunt Martha. I stayed with Aunt Martha when my stepsister married in 1959, my stepmother had the bride and bridesmaids to worry about so Aunt Martha took on me, the flower girl. She was a little batty, was our Aunt Martha; she enjoyed the boys and took on a horrible, unimaginable, we still "laugh" about it hatred of my niece/godchild when she was barely a teen in the 1970's/early 80's and it lasted (got worse if possible) until Aunt Martha died. When she was in her 70's she wore white knee socks with pleated skirts and a fur coat; not a fashion statement, but she was well-off and left my stepsister, the other niece she liked, and me, each £6500 but we had to sign a statement saying no man would have any say in how we spent it (this after she died, we did not receive the check until we'd returned the signed paper to the lawyer) and she left the rest of her £1,300,000 to the Smithsonian Institution.

My point? (Yes, I sort of have one :-) I was shocked to receive the check and sat and thought about my life and remembered Aunt Martha in it and her stories and her little house (on the water with its own oyster bed), her adult tricycle bike, and that she lived a few blocks from where my to-be husband had gone to high school (small world) and her ex-husband and how he just "disappeared" from my life, no explanation and then died later, on and on, all my memories and trying to imagine if they were not part of my life, who then would I be?

Pact, Peg, I promise to remember you and your substantive impact on my life as long as I live I was watching TV the other day, saw the ending of "Clash of the Titans", the 1981 one and Pegasus was featured and I thought of you instead (since the "actual" Pegasus was so lame looking :-) You're woven into my life such that you cannot be taken out without doing me damage! I was also reminded of the cyclops in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad I saw back in 1958, that has stuck with me ever since There's light and there's dark, we need them both (as the Arabs say, "All sun makes a desert") but you're definitely a light in my life.

[Moodswing]

I am waiting for the Irony to happen to me. I struggle and go through therapy to want to live,find joy and meaning in life and not want to die. Right at the moment when it happens I will most likely find out I have terminal cancer or something. It would be the universe saying, "Well you have been wishing to die for YEARS so here you go. You got what you wished for."

[So hopeful]

Many people much smarter than us have believed that awareness of mortality is at the root of all neurosis. The fact is we are going to die, we know it, and we’re powerless to do anything about it. That is a truly terrible awareness.

I’m depressive and also suffer from OCD. My psychologist and I do a lot of difficult, revealing and powerful work trying to uncover and bring out into the open those aspects of my past and upbringing that explain how those maladaptive defenses got built up. But he’s also been encouraging me to see how they might also be defenses against the more basic and universal terror of death.

I didn’t feel that was true at first, even though I started seeing him after an intolerable depression following the unrelated deaths of a surprising number of close people in my life. I’d always felt pretty philosophical about death, accepting it as a natural and inevitable part of life. But when I had a real life-and-death scare myself earlier this year – I swear I looked death right in the eye – I went into a kind of terror I’d never experienced before. It made my crippling, horrible, life-destroying depression look like a picnic.

There are a number of books on the subject that have given me great comfort recently. I don’t know if it’s OK to cite specific books here, but I’d be glad to recommend them if it is. Through some of this reading, I’ve found (and you might find) especially relevant the idea that people with maladaptive defenses like depression, OCD, schizophrenia, etc., can be seen to be ‘honest’. They are unable to hide the overwhelming dilemma of a living being that knows it’s going to die – which everyone experiences – under the more normal adaptations, say, by ‘just getting on with life’.

I recognize that feeling: sometimes I feel like I’ve been flayed from head to toe and that all the grit of life is being hurled against my open wounds. I often don’t feel able to do anything but lie on the sofa, crying in a terrible pain, though on the outside my life is beautiful, with all the advantages and comforts that so many people never have. The thought that that rawness and dysfunction might be a kind of honest expression of the universal life dilemma actually made me feel a little better. Not that I don’t still feel pain, just that it feels less ‘insane’, bizarre, shameful and isolating – and I begin to feel so hopeful about life, even at the bottom of the dark well.

Many very smart people – some alive today and some long gone – believe there is a way through the dilemma of the awareness and terror of death. One thing that’s helped me most is to realize that your ego is not your whole self or your true self, though we often feel like it is. We identify so much with it. Because it’s the ego that’s afraid of dying, realizing that your ego is not your whole self, but only a part of it, really helps temper the terrible awareness of death. When I am most troubled, I see my ego as being very heavy. It crowds out my awareness of the other aspects of life. It’s ‘selfish’ in that sense. Therapy can be one way to help bring a sense of balance to the various aspects of your self.

This is a kind of transcendental thought that won’t be popular with some people. But it rings true for me, even in my most cynical moments when my doubt is doing everything in its power to crush those thoughts. And it’s the only thing I’ve found that has any lasting power to enable me to live with the knowledge, bitterness and terror of death. I hope these thoughts help you, too.

[gma45]

I read this thread then I went outside and stared up at the sky and thought I am just a small part of an infinite universe which is alright with me, it will go on. I do not fear death I fear being a burden on my love ones or anyone for that matter. I am a small part of the grand illusion. I am glad I got to at least dance one dance.