Intentional Stress Challenge: Write Your Obituary
Progressive challenge series focused on developing purpose and peace in the contemplation of death.
Disclaimer: If you are currently struggling, this challenge is not for you.
Focus on recovery.
Use stress management strategies, lean on your support systems, seek help, and utilize any/all available resources to encourage improved perspective and function.
Death Makes Life Worth Living
The meaning of life is to become comfortable with death.
Life is not meaningful without the presence of death.
Death is inevitable.
When and how it happens for each of us is relatively unknown.
This uncertainty can either produce fear or passion. Fear of something we can’t control or passion for living fully every moment we are gifted.
Becoming comfortable with our mortality is not morbid, it’s empowering.
Desire and comfort, however, are not the same.
Wanting to die is much different than being comfortable with eventually dying.
How do we remove angst around death?
How do we prevent some from tipping toward desire? From losing meaning in life?
Collective support.
Explore paths to meaning.
Embrace both the known and unknown.
Develop peace.
Life is precious because of death.
The loss of a life is difficult because that life was loved.
The living honor the dead by making the most of life.
We all WILL die. There is no choice in it.
We all CAN live. How and why, is a decision.
One can live fully by embracing death’s certainty.
Removing the concern around death’s unknowns allows for optimized efforts on life’s opportunities.
Uncertainty
Uncertainty of the end and what comes next, regardless of belief system, produces a deep-seated fear that influences our thinking patterns and willingness to contemplate death.
Ignorance is perceptually bliss.
Avoiding the topic of dying provides the illusion of security or the promotion of positivity.
We tend to focus more on how to stay alive rather than becoming comfortable with our inevitable death.
Finding purpose is an ideal to consistently strive for. Sharing it with others once you do is even better. Being a good person and living authentically, that’s something anyone can decide to do now.
In order to become comfortable with death, one must become comfortable with how he or she is living.
“What is success? It is being able to go to bed each night with your soul at peace.”
-Paulo Coelho
What is required for one to develop peace?
Acceptance.
Acceptance of yourself. If you’re always doing your best while remaining true to who you are, what more can be asked?
Acceptance of everything, particularly of things beyond control. The past, anything outside of yourself in the present, and the future are all uncontrollable.
Accept or not.
Peace or misery.
Story on Rewriting Legacy
Alfred Nobel is the man credited with creating dynamite in 1867. A Swedish engineer with over 355 patents, Alfred was recognized as a brilliant and passionate inventor. Unfortunately, his identity became tied to his most infamous invention despite being an established humanitarian and philanthropist.
Dynamite, like anything else, can be used for good or evil. A known pacificist, there is no indication that Alfred was an evil man determined to create a technology that would be used to kill innocent lives.
Didn’t matter.
The evils of others became inherently linked to the developer of this new, destructive capability.
When a French newspaper mistakenly released an obituary about him rather than his brother Ludvig who had passed away, Alfred had the unique opportunity to see how he may be remembered. The headline read, “The merchant of death is dead.” He was then described as the man who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before.
Reading this obituary initially troubled the already grieving man but eventually inspired Alfred to rewrite his legacy.
He privately changed his will and left behind the majority of his fortune to establish a foundation tasked with recognizing contributions in peace, literature, physics, chemistry, and medicine. The Nobel Prizes have become prestigious honors given to people throughout the world since 1901.
Some find it ironic that the Nobel Peace Prize was established by the man who invented dynamite. I find the story to be inspiring.
Ultimately, our lives are defined by our contributions and character.
How others view us, out of our control.
How we view ourselves and where we place our intentions and actions, completely ours.
Contemplation
If you were to knowingly die in a month, what would you change about your life today?
The best place to start is often with consideration of the end.
The five most commonly reported regrets by people knowingly dying are:
Not living authentically and doing what was perceptually expected by others instead
Working too much
Not sharing emotions
Losing touch with friends
Not finding ways to enjoy each day
What do you want to leave behind? What kind of impact are you trying to make?
Who do you want to be known as? To others and yourself?
What perspectives of the world do you want to have had?
What mental states do you want to have been most prevalent?
How much love do you want to have possessed and for who?
What do you want your obituary to say?
Reverse engineer what you want your life to look like in this challenge.
When it’s all said and done, how do you want to be remembered? What do you want to have accomplished? What are you doing now that aligns with or is working toward those final goals?
External goals are great.
Internal goals are better.
What truly matters to you? Why?
There may be no more worthwhile reflection.
Challenge Series
Basic Challenge: Take ten minutes and write down how you’d like to be remembered and some things you want to accomplish life.
Use the questions asked throughout this post as prompts if need be.
No wrong answers.
Develop a working draft that will be used for the next challenge.
Advanced Challenge: Spend at least ten minutes a day for a week writing your obituary.
There is no length or formatting structure that you need to be concerned with.
A list, a paragraph or a page are all completely appropriate.
By the end of the week, a document that you can continue to come back to for reflection and updates is the ideal.
Elite Challenge: Keep your obituary, reflect on it once a month, and update it for the next year.
I completed this challenge several years ago during COVID.
I’m still completing it today as contemplation of death, reflection on my values, orienting my actions, and ultimately trying to be the man I want to be is a daily challenge.
Forever.
The obituary I wrote has changed dramatically. Doesn’t really matter. The practice of this extreme form of contemplation has dramatically changed my perspective and approach to life.
The little things that cause distress don’t matter.
The little things that cause love, peace, connection, and growth are EVERYTHING.
Life ends up being a culmination of the little things.
Use this challenge as a way to communicate with your future self.
What would he/she want you to be doing today in order to create the legacy you want to leave behind?
The practice of death contemplation isn’t initially comfortable.
Good.
Initial discomfort is the path to improved resilience over time.
Become comfortable with death by optimizing your life.
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If you’re interested in what my obituary looks like, need someone to talk to for support, or have other forms of feedback on this post, please reach out!
I recently created a community chat where I share a daily reflection. Conversations are intended to inspire contemplation like many of the questions posed in this article.
Self-awareness and understanding reveal opportunities for self-improvement and fulfillment.
Sharing your thoughts and experiences with others allows for transcendence.
Join a like-minded community seeking individual and collective growth.
Loved this Kyle !
I’ve long used death as means of getting more value from life. Memento mori, and all that.
But Kyle, your suggestion to write your own obituary or eulogy is a really cool take on the idea.
Good challenge to try to close the gap between your imaginary eulogy and where you are right now.