Earlier this year, I came across a video that talked about a writer who liked to examine and write about people on their death beds. She had been writing on the topic of death for years, speaking from professional experience with hospitalized patients who were not expected to live very long. The book was called, “On Dying and Death” and it’s by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. In addition to being a writer, Ross was also a significant figure in the health industry and began her career as a psychiatrist. She was even able to develop a general chart or a stage-by-stage explanation of the emotions that people go through before they accept that their loved ones are dying. She called them the five stages of grief, and they are ordered as follows: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance.
Although I never sat down to read this novel and experience it for the amazing book that it truly is, the author’s findings about the mental process behind accepting death stuck with me and I found myself extremely curious to know how she wrote this book, and what other factors played into her crafting these ideas.
I’m not completely sure if this piece of information is connected to Ross’s book, but I also saw that when people are close to death, they are thinking about two things, “Who have I helped, and what have I done in my life?” Hearing this really influenced the trajectory of the path I thought I was going down back then, and it made me consider the meaning of purpose and how I could use my own to contribute to the world.
Before I came to MSA, I didn’t really think I had a purpose and that’s just to say I didn’t believe there was anything that I was working on to better my future or someone else’s future. But looking back on my junior year, I realize that is absolutely not true because some of the happiest moments of my senior year stemmed from the efforts of my junior year. Now, I think it’s so important to celebrate our entire journey, because that’s how we build the courage to keep going, and to continue building whatever craft. So, if anything, my years here have taught me to welcome the hard times and be very open to experience and allow myself to be shaped by my struggles.
Yeah, so, this quote is very special to me because I was able to carve out my own definition of purpose and be moved by it. I definitely don’t have everything figured out, but one of my main goals in life is to be conscience about the world and the people who are in it, not that it’ll make accepting death any easier, but because it’s important to me.
One of my plans this summer is to actually read this book and probably be really immersed in it for a while. I’m interested in works that explore some facets of human existence and contemplate what they mean. Also, I wanted to write about something sad for my last blog, so I thought this book being my latest fascination matched that well, I guess.
Anyways, if you’re interested in this book too, let me know, maybe we can go half and half on it at our local bookstore, and swap it every couple of years?
