Laying in bed the other night, I felt a wave of grief and paralyzing fear come over me as my mind drifted deep into the thought of death—the inevitable conclusion and reality of my life.
And I laid there with it for quite some time… Imagining the various ways it all might unfold for me.
I imagined the various ages I could be… I imagined the various ways it might occur… I imagined the types of regrets I might feel…
And it absolutely terrified me.
To think about this unimaginatively impossible occurrence happening only once… getting no do-overs or heads up as to when it’ll all come to an end… being gone for the rest of time as life continues on without me… being forgotten… being nothing…
…And then I woke up the next morning.
And not only did it feel like another chance… but it reminded me that sleep is a type of exercise in death. It’s time spent being completely unconscious and evaporated from reality… and there wasn’t even a single moment of fear from when I fell asleep to when I woke up.
Live your days as mini-lives unto themselves. Fulfill as much of your life as you can from that moment you wake until the moment you sleep. Exercise and familiarize yourself with death. And, as Leonardo da Vinci said, the rest should take care of itself: “As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.“