Thinking about death is a quick way to get honest clarity about life

By David McElroy · July 30, 2012

Six months ago today, I had surgery to remove cancer in my left breast. It was an episode so far out of my normal experience of life that it almost seems as though it never happened. And now, six months later, one of my best friends is going in for major surgery today, too.

When I had my brush with cancer, I didn’t think I was going to die, but I knew it was a possibility. As my friend goes in for some serious surgery, I don’t expect her to die, either, but I know that she could die. We all react differently to the idea of death. Some people get depressed. Some people think of others they’ve lost. It has a different effect on me. It makes me think seriously about life.

(If you weren’t around for my cancer scare last January, here’s the article in which I first discussed it. And here’s what I wrote as I was going in for surgery that day.)

I don’t know about you, but I have a terrible habit of taking life for granted. There have been certain chunks of my life when I’ve absolutely wasted my time, simply because it seemed as though my time was almost limitless. When I’ve done that, I’ve felt bored and unfulfilled. I think that’s one of the real causes of some people turning to various kinds of drugs or other addictions. (For me, the addiction was sugar. I’ve written before about feeling like a “sugarholic.”)

But when you think about how limited life can be — and the inevitability of its ending — it makes you want to use it more wisely. It makes you want to figure out what really matters to you. It makes you want to adjust how you’re spending your time and who you’re spending your time with.

I felt this way six months ago, and I’m feeling that same queasy feeling right now as I think about my friend’s surgery today. In these last six months, I feel as though I’ve changed. I don’t know whether it’s visible to anyone else, but I feel as though I care a little less about whether others agree with me. I feel more of an urgency to do some things that matter. And I feel a much greater sense of urgency about changing who I’m around.

When you get to the end of your life, what do you want to look back and see that you’ve done? Do you want to see that you’ve invested your hours at an office and that you’ve earned a lot of money? Do you want to see that you’ve spent your years concentrating on political activism of one kind or another? Or would you rather see that you’ve invested time in building the kind of loving family you want? If you’re a Christian, would you like to know that you’ve spend your time seeking and following God’s will for your life?

Some people never get to the point of realizing that they’ve wasted their lives and that there was no purpose to their lives. Others are fortunate enough to get a gnawing feeling somewhere along the way that something’s wrong and that something needs to change. It can be a painful process to learn enough about yourself to hunger for something else, but if you’re able to create real change in your life because of it, the pain of self-discovery can be worth it.

I’ve wasted a lot of time, but I’m emotionally more awake than I’ve ever been. I’ve clarified the things that are important to me. Life matters more than ever. Family matters more to me than ever. Love matters more to me than ever. Serving God and changing the world for the better matter to me even more than ever.

I can’t go back and become a baby again in order to relive my life and make up for the wasted time. The baby that’s born today — such as the one above — will have to go through the same mistakes that each of us has gone through (and maybe some of his own that hasn’t even occurred to us). The only thing we can do is start where we are and work to make each day matter. And that’s hard to do, even when you’re sure it’s what you want.

Life is a precious gift. I’ve wasted too much of that gift, but I’m learning how to squeeze more out of it and make it matter. I’m still learning and I’ll keep learning. At least I understand what the goal is now, though.

As my friend goes in for surgery, I pray that she’s safe and that everything will be fine in the end. I don’t like watching her go through this, just as I didn’t like going through something similar six months ago. But if things such as this — very light brushes against death — are the best way to get us to wake up and find more meaning in life, it’s worth the pain of going through them.

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We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

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