Visualize Your Death
Video transcript below:
What if a bus hit you? Now could you think about that?
Now imagine I’m on my phone, not paying attention, and some brand new Tesla speeding through the parking lot, isn’t paying attention, is looking the other way, and hits me, and I’m gone.
I leave my child behind. I leave my family behind. I leave you guys behind, my followers, my friends. I leave this world.
What would I do if I knew that was going to happen? How can I respect that possibility? How can I appreciate that unless technology comes through for us, there will be a day in my future when I’m going to bite the dust?
Now think about it for yourself. What are you going to do with the time you have right now? And whether you believe in the afterlife or not, it will not be the same as this life.
And this life can be beautiful and unique, and you can do things to help other people and reduce the suffering that there is in this world today because there’s a lot of grief, there’s a lot of injustice, and there’s a lot of opportunity to make it better for yourself and others. We all have something to contribute.
The stoics use this concept of considering your death, and I’m a big stoic philosophy proponent, follower, etc. I love the stoics. They call it negative visualization. You imagine the worse that can happen.
For example, you could imagine that you lose your son or your child or your wife or your husband, and you should directly visualize how you would feel about that. Most people don’t want to do this because it can be painful.
We figured out that there’s gold through pain, trial, struggle, and challenging things. All that pressure, millions of years through carbon, creates a diamond.
Without the pressure, environment, and forces, there’d be no diamond. Without pressure and details, you wouldn’t be grateful for anything.
You’d get your value in life thus far based on what you’ve gone through, and that’s why I sometimes pity people that have had singularly perfect lives because when that thing does happen, when their heart gets broken, or they lose their job, or they go broke, or heaven forbid they’re attacked or victim or whatever, they’re not going to be prepared to deal with it.
And so, one way to prepare is to focus on how things could be worse so that you can move to a place of gratitude now. That’s the purpose.
The purpose isn’t to wallow in despair or to be depressed or anything like that. The goal is to take, wow, that could happen, and it can. Millions of people die every single day.
It could happen to me. It could happen to people I care about. It’s going to. Everyone watching this video, someone you care about at some point in her life, will die. Let it sink in for a moment. It’s true.
My dad’s side of the family passed away. I’ve lost my father. I’ve lost friends. And I try to celebrate their life. I try to celebrate their memory. And I try to honor myself by being now, being in the present, and doing great things.
I am living to my fullest potential and not being complacent. I know I can do great things, so I need to do it; I have to do it.
I can’t just sit here and watch Netflix every night. That’s easy. And save up money and live a wonderful little comfortable life. I have that, but I’d rather have it all on the line.
I’d instead invest and build and live frugally for a long time because I can reach more people that way. And if there’s a big payday at the end, that’s great. And if there isn’t, I still have this.
I still have YouTube. I still have Instagram. I still have ways to reach people. And I can interact with people in real life here in Texas and worldwide.
There is always going to be an opportunity for those who give your gifts to the world; there’s always going to be an opportunity.
When you give your gifts to the world, those that help others, empower them, lift them, and bring them out of poverty, pain, and suffering, you will always have a purpose and a profession.
And that is a prerequisite for human happiness is you must have a purpose. You must belong.
So I want you right now to think about your death. The death of people you care about. What would your life look like?
I imagine what people would say at my funeral. I picture them sitting there with me in the casket. It’d be nice for them to say nice things, and I think they would.
But I know they would feel bad that I didn’t get to give more of my gifts to the world and do more of the things I’ve planned to do and that I don’t get to spend more time with them.
It’s something we all need to do, and I think we get caught up in this short clicky, likey, short form, like all positive or funny or whatever, distraction-based Internet world we live in. And the reality is we celebrate the death of famous people because that’s what the news talks about.
But what about the millions of people that are just daughters, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, and grandparents? What about them that die every day? Yeah, they get their funeral. Maybe someone posts about it on social media, and people offer their sad face emojis and stuff.
But what are we doing about today? How are we letting the now be affected by things that don’t matter because we’re not paying attention to those that count?
How often do we miss an opportunity to call someone we care about, spend time with them, or say yes to spending time with friends or family even though we have a lot to do or want to work?
And I know I struggle with that because I’ve got to balance spending time with the now with building my future and a future for everyone and a lot for a better world.
That’s why you have to think about these things. That’s why you must have these conversations with others and yourself, right?
If you need to, record a video like this, and watch it back. Do that and leave a comment below; let me know. Let me know some thoughts, and share your story.
Let me know how you feel doing this exercise or some examples of how you’ve done this. Maybe you’ve been forced to do this as you’ve lost somebody, and perhaps how that loss has helped you.
Every loss I’ve experienced has helped me in some way, even though going through it is the worst thing ever, and we never want it. We’d never wish it on anyone.
So leave a comment below. I like this because I want more people to find it and do the same thing. These ideas and practices are like philosophy, stoicism, negative visualization, or just thinking about death.
We need these things in our modern world not to be distracted by all the drama, gossip, news, fear-mongering, and BS that sucks up so much of our attention and energy.
So thanks for watching.
Founder/CEO, Wild Foods
