Mohini Kundu

Losing a loved one is a sobering reminder that one day we just… won’t be. This fabulous ride we’re on will end. This magical world with entertainment at your fingertips, an endless blue sky above, and oceans we’ll never get close to the bottom of — our existence within it is finite. And there’s nothing like never being able to see someone again to bring that into sharp focus.

I shared before that I essentially had a nervous breakdown a couple years ago, and a major feature of it was fear of mortality. Death absolutely terrified me, and because it is the one thing that can be guaranteed with certainty in life, I had to come to grips with it.

Though at first even the exploration of the topic sparked dread in me, I began seeking out stories and teachings that could help me make sense of this terrible truth. At the time, I used the Calm app for daily meditation, and within it I came across the following passage:

Existential psychotherapy has a hypothesis that is connected to our awareness that life is finite. The American psychologist Irving Yalom was a professor of psychiatry at Stanford University, and his books consider the entirely natural anxiety of unmet potential within a limited timespan.

He writes, “Many people are in despair because their dreams didn’t come true, and they despair even more that they did not make them come true.”

Make use of your time.

The Italian author Italo Calvino wrote, “I would like this to signal the end of ‘wasted angst’ in my life.” Yalom advises, “Live your life to the fullest; and then, and only then, die. Don’t leave any unlived life behind.”

Unless you use your time to explore and live in whatever way feels authentic to you, the fear of time running out persists. I have found it to be true. The main thing that has helped me to overcome those feelings of dread has been living each day in a way I believe I would be proud of on my death bed.

As I pivoted my life into a direction that felt more in line with my values, the fear slowly began to dissipate. Or rather, I’m not quite so terrified of time running out, because I’m using it for what is important to me. I don’t put off the conversations I would regret not having with loved ones. I always say, “I love you.” I’ll be the one to end the fight. I spend every day with my dog, my child, talking to my parents or siblings, appreciating nature, working toward my earnest, personal dreams, not what I think others will be impressed by.

“Don’t be afraid of death, Winnie,” Angus Tuck says in Tuck Everlasting. “Be afraid of the unlived life.” I didn’t understand when I was younger, but now I suppose that is what I was truly afraid of: the idea that my youth and now perhaps a third of my life had expired, but I was still living in a way that felt far from how I wished to.

It was also daunting because I didn’t start out with complete clarity about what did matter to me, or who I was or how to live authentically. “Wasted angst” is a pretty good summary of where I was at that point. It took many months to figure those things out, and I still consider myself to be on that journey.

First, I had to tackle the mental habits that were obscuring the real me. Which started with, you guessed it, therapy. More on that next week.