I think the best way to describe my current understanding of death would be to mention that suffering and demise are inevitable. They should be perceived as the inextricable elements of human life that cannot and should not be eradicated from the natural cycle that each of us has to go through. My view of death also coincides with the outlook presented in Hoelterhoff and Chung’s (2017) article, where it was noted that one should always strive to remain wholesome and accept what is coming to them. I think that one should not give in to death anxiety and continue living a meaningful life while paying attention to how they could make others’ lives better as well. Not only does this represents a great means of reducing suffering, but it also creates opportunities for people to display their attachments and achieve clarity.
Nevertheless, it may also be safe to say that my attitude toward death has transformed significantly since my teenage years because I was too careless to realize the importance of the moment. I have avoided the nature of reality due to my younger age and the lack of experience that could provide me with more insight into death and its role in human life. In the words of Lee (2017), one should appraise mindfulness and spend less time thinking about suffering to detach from unnecessary grief and improve their condition. Now that I grew up, I realized that people have to cultivate compassion and share experiences to build interconnectedness and perceive death as something natural and unavoidable. I see death as the final destination that cannot be assigned to a certain moment in time, meaning that people should think and do good at all times and not just on their deathbeds.
References
Hoelterhoff, M., & Chung, M. C. (2017). Death anxiety resilience: A mixed methods investigation. Psychiatric Quarterly, 88(3), 635-651.
Lee, Y. J. (2017). The difference of the death perception, death attitude and the awareness of biomedical ethics of nursing students according to the completion of bioethics education. Journal of the Korea Bioethics Association, 18(2), 95-109.