Working in a cemetery five days out of the week can be a depressing job. You face your own mortality every day of week as you see people from every race, creed, and age pass away. You watch all the families and friend grieve for the loss of their loved ones while wishing there was just one thing you could say to them to help relieve their pain and aguish and their own fears. In reality, though, all you can do is just stand by their sad and offer their condolences and then simply walk away as they continue on with their lives. However, each passing person leaves his or her mark on your own life, even if you don’t realize it. The marks left on me are numerous. Back when I first started my job, I would have panic attacks each and every night. Nothing could stop these panic attacks even though I tried as hard as I could to think myself out of them. I would sit there and fear death. Not death itself but the great life mystery to just what happens after you die. As to if there is a Heaven and Hell or nothing at all, I do not know. Nobody knows except the people who can no longer speak to us. Eventually, the numbness of seeing all those people pass away set in and the panic attacks subsided. However it did not relieve the fear of dying and the other fear that I suffered from too, gerascophobia, or the fear of growing old. I don’t know exactly why I’m afraid of growing old, it may be the fact that growing old ultimately leads to death or the fact that growing old means that many goods times will have passed along with many of the people I have known and loved throughout my life. Trying to fight my own fears, though, has opened up my mind to a lot of stuff. I’m more cautious then I used to be, but I’m also more willing to try new things. It’s also lead to some deep thinking which is the main thing I want to discuss. One of the questions I have asked myself repeatedly is “Why do people do the things they do?” The question itself is very vague but then I always find myself thinking about different aspects of it. “Why do people buy that car or that house when it really won’t matter after they die.” “Why do people push so hard to become famous when the vast majority are completely forgotten.” “Why do people do something that is so stupid and simple such as telling little white lies when it does nothing at all?” These are the questions I’ll often ask myself but the answer always boils down to one word and that one word is the thing that all people live for. It’s what everyone strives to achieve no matter what the cost. That one word is happiness. The little white lies you tell often get you out of trouble or impress a person, which, in effect, makes you happy. That new car or new house offers you’re the lifestyle that makes you happy. Being famous, which often leads to wealth, makes others happy. Being happy is the ultimate end goal of our lives. Religion even evolves around this simple word. Christianity teaches you that in Heaven you will be happy whereas in Hell, you won’t. All the other religions share the same basic principle. So is happiness really what we should strive for? A hundred years after we are long gone, did the things that made us happy in our lives really matter? Did they make a difference in how the people of that time live? What if one thing you did that made you happy directly leads to something that will cause a large number of people to experience pain or hunger or poverty, would you still do that one thing that made you happy if you knew that would cause it? More then likely, the answer is “Yes.” I’ve asked several people their thoughts on what time holds after their time is up and most of the answers seem to be “it doesn’t really matter to me because I won’t be alive to know.” Has humanity grown to the point though that we simply cannot think about what lies beyond our passing? I myself am guilty of being a “happiness whore.” Not but a few days ago I made a post where I stated that I try and live my life in the moment. This is true, I try not to plan things to far out as I try and live my life like today is my last day alive. I try my damndest to make myself happy and the people around me happy. Are my decisions the wisest? No. Do they benefit others or me down the road? Sometimes. Will I continue to strive for happiness in my own life? Yes. Why? Because, for the vast majority of us, that is all we have. The human populace has grown enough to where the whole point of living is no longer to procreate and keep the race alive. Now it’s simply being happy. So what I want to know now, even though I’ve shifted subjects from what I initially stated, is what you’re thoughts are. Do you live your life now to make you happy now or are pushing yourself day after day to make yourself happy in the future? Do you tolerate your life now hoping whatever is making you sad or miserable will make you stronger and lead to better life decisions down the road? Are you trying to leave your mark on the world or are you just planning on going out like the vast majority of everyone else? Any comments or questions of your own?
I totally agree - though happiness varies from person - to - person. Some people value success and a career as happiness, so strive to get it. Others think of money as happiness. Most think of love as happiness. Deep and meaningful post - I often wonder about afterlife and used to worry about it when I was a kid, but now I just see it as another stage in life (or not, as the case may be).
I was gonna say that You need to stop smoking your gardenhedge and just have a laugh... But then again...Do you value matter over mind?? Or vice versa.. I value things different than you do, that is what makes us individuals.. belief is not for me tho, I'm ateist because I have been to a place of worship (think church/moske/??) unless I had to, and my parents never said to me and my brother to believe in this or this God(s).. I take each and every day as an experience, and hope it will not be just as the day before... I do drugs for recreational reasons... Dont judge me on that because i used to drink heavily... Just look at yourself in the mirror every day and ask yourself why you take the actions you do. Granted that objective look on yourself, you will know.. Stefan
I think we should start a poll on how big Nexxo's post is going to be. 200 words anyone? On a more serious note, I don't let this bother me. To me death is a decaying of my body, nothing happens.
Here's my great insight on life... "Happiness is what happens when you choose to be happy" No, really, it IS that simple. Most people are brought up believing that they don't have much control over how they feel. Society tells us that our emotions are driven by outside events, not by how we choose to feel. The problem with learning that happiness is a choice is that it makes us responsible for our own happiness. If we're not happy, it's not because someone else is making us unhappy, it's because we're choosing to be unhappy. People don't like that, they don't like to be responsible for what happens to them. It's much easier to blame everyone else or "life" or whatever if they don't feel they way they think the should. If you want the full explination on how this works, real "Illusions" by Richard Bach. Put me down for 500
Very funny. (OK, you're correct, but that's beside the point). Bloodcar has been experiencing something we all experience when we are confronted with powerlessness, death and suffering (or anything else traumatic): existential anxiety. I worked in brain injury rehab; now I work with cancer patients. Trust me. I know all about this one... Here's how it works in a nutshell: when you are confronted with something sudden and life threatening, that you have no control over, it challenges three basic beliefs: 1. Your basic beliefs about life: We all like to believe that life is fairly safe and secure, that it follows a predictable pattern and is controllable, and that it has a purpose and meaning. Sure, bad stuff happens, but generally to other people we don't know. Personal confrontation with death or trauma often shatters these basic life beliefs. You may suddenly feel that life is dangerous, fragile, unpredictable, uncontrollable and meaningless. Common thoughts are “why did this happen to them?”; “what if it happens to me?” "What is the point of life?" etc. You question the meaning and purpose of it all. You feel utterly powerless in the grand scheme of things. 2. Your basic beliefs about yourself: Your image of yourself may shatter also. You may react very differently than you had imagined you would, feel powerless or stupid; you may blame yourself for how you responded (even if it is natural, or there is nothing you could have done different). You may feel numb, or weak, not the person you thought you were. You may feel like your identity has been taken away from you. 3. You basic beliefs about your future: The future that you thought was so certain is taken away. Everything may seem uncertain now: life goals and dreams, career prospects, growing old with your partner and seeing the children grow up. As we all know from Beck's cognitive behavioural psychology, when your positive beliefs about self, life and future are destroyed, you are in for a big dose of hopelessness and depression, which is basically a psychological stance that All Is Futile. All human behaviour strives to meet one's life needs (see Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to see which they are). When we are able to sufficiently meet our needs, we are "happy". You can see how basic life beliefs about self, life and future are all about these needs for survival, safety, love/belonging, self-esteem and efficacy and self-actualisation. When your basic beliefs are threatened, so is the prospect that all these needs can be met, from basic survival right up to control over one's life and one's existential place in the universe. Hopelessness and helplessness go hand in hand. And nobody likes to feel like a fragile, meaningless, powerless speck in a cold, hostile universe that could wipe us out any instant by fluke or whim, right? So we have these layers of psychological defences that keep us in a fluffy mental cocoon of denial. It's how we get on with our lives without going crazy. But once in a while some Bad Sh*t comes along that pops the lid off life and lets us have a look at the works, so to speak. It challenges our basic beliefs and existential anxiety and despair ensues. So what to do? How can we be "happy" again? Well, different cultures and religions have found different answers. The Buddhists for instance, try to integrate harsh reality by saying: "Look, nothing is certain, and all is suffering, so save yourself the hurt and disappointment. The less you desire and need, the less you are attached to the world, the less you can get hurt. Stick to the spiritual instead." Other religions decide that we are not meaningless, powerless flecks in a cold and indifferent cosmos, but that there is a Big Daddy out there looking out for us. We do matter to him, and we can influence our lives by pleasing him (all this is basic psychological attachment at work. It is wired in to our brains to think this way). This gives us a sense of meaning and control back. Moral interpretations are, however, inevitable; after all bad stuff does still happen to us willy-nilly, and we now have to integrate that in our religious worldview. Hence, it is now our chosen God's will, and because God must basically be a kind and just person (best not contemplate the scary notion that He might be a cruel, callous God), bad stuff must happen to people when they have been bad. The price of maintaining an illusion of control is judgementality --and guilt, if the bad thing happened to us (Abused children reason in the same way --this is why they assume all the blame for their abuse. The parent must be good and just; therefore their abuse must mean that it is the child who is bad. Now consider the implications for a child disclosing abuse. Geddit? A bit off topic, but I think people should know about this stuff). People can get themselves in quite a twist trying to maintain congruence between their religious beliefs and what actually happens in a complex, seemingly random world, as you can tell from various religious wars and conflicts. But to these people, it is a matter of life and death... Another way of integrating trauma, is to learn to feel OK with uncertainty and loss. This is an extremely tough one, but by far the best way to go, and it is possible. This means redefining "happy" not in an abstinence of everything worldly, but learning to embrace and recognise and savour all the small details; they small everyday "happiness" you find everyday in sunshine, the smell of grass, the feel of fresh cotton sheets or of holding hands, a nice cup of coffee... It's a wonderful world, if you are open to experiencing it. And we can find purpose by investing in humanity. We enjoy the relatively enlightened, comfortable and interesting lives we have now because ancient ancestors in muddy, primitive pasts strove for a better life for their children and children's children. Each person can make a contribution, no matter how small, to actualise the human species, and create the utopian society we only dream about now. Humanity is worth investing in. It is all we've got. It is the only chance we've got. We might as well take it. Perhaps we will all get wiped out in the next five minutes, by a meteorite, Asian flu, or terrorists. But don't be afraid. As Bill Hicks said: "life is just a ride". If it is a journey, the destination doesn't matter nearly as much as that you travel it well. Don't forget to smell the flowers on the way past.
That's pretty much the satisfaction I get out of life. All of the simple things that most people overlook just tend to brighten my day. At one point in time during the beginning phases of when everything happened (I actually consulted Nexxo in a few PMs but I also consulted therapists in person) I just could not look over the little things. Hell, I used to be absolutely scared shitless to see a clock. A simple little clock would through me into a panic attack because I knew that with each passing moment, every tick of the second hand, was time that I could not regain. It's a very weird and scary fear. It's a fear that you know that you should not have but it's a fear that you simply can't shake. It's one of those things that you can't over come it by confronting it because you're already confronting it every single day of your life. It's kind of crappy to sit there and try and fight your own mind and lose the battle every time. It's almost as if something has taken control of your arm and your arm keeps slapping you across the face. You know you should be able to control it but yet it's continually slapping you. To explain to all just the triggering causes of when it began, it wasn't just starting work at a cemetery but it was an important factor in making it worse but better at the same time. Several months before I started my job, I was experiencing migrains of increasing pain. They ended up getting so bad that it was rare for me to leave my darkened apartment because the light would cause my migrains to intensify. I actually had a migrain for over two and a half months without it ever going away. During that time I made an appointment with my doctor and the probable causes were vitamin defecencies, blocked blood vessle, or a brain tumor. The last one is what triggered it. I had two months from the time my doctor told me that until the time I could receive a brain MRI. That's alot of time to think "What if...?" Well, time comes and I get my MRI done, however it'll be at least a week from then until I receive my results. In the time period between, I started having panic attacks on a massive scale. One panic attack I actually thought I was having a heart attack because it came from nowhere. I wasn't thinking about anything that would send me into a panic attack, I was just driving when my chest started feeling weird. I ended up having a friend give me a ride to the hospital only to leave the hospital four hours later and not even being admitted. The next day, I got the job offer at the cemetery but I told my boss that I'd let her know if I wanted the job the day I received my MRI results. On Monday, my doctor called and said that my MRI came back clean (which I found out actually they didn't as I have a massive cyst in my sinuses that may be the cause of my migrains) so I started working at the cemetery the very next day. Unfortunately for me though, the good news I received just simply wasn't enough and the panic attacks ensued every night. After a month or two they slowed down to only two or three a week and now I only get them about once a month if even that often. That's why I said the cemetery was both good and bad for me. It was bad because I didn't have enough time to recooperate from my own mental battles with death before I was facing death every day of the week. I mean, when you look out your office window and see thousands upon thousands of graves with fresh ones being dug and filled every few days, it eats at you. I seriosuly think I could handle watching people just die better then what I could have handled watching the final process of their life every day. The reason I say that is because if I were where they died at, I wouldn't see that person or anything of that person's anymore. However, at the cemetery, I see the last thing remaining of that person every day of the week. Their marker that shows both the beginning and end of their life. Eventually, however, I slowly started to become numb to death. In fact, if anyone I had known had passed away while I was fighting my own mind, I probably would have completely lost it and ended up committing suicide (that was actually a contemplation alot of the time because there for a long time I feared I would never get my mind out of the rut that it was in.) My father hadn't even been buried all that long when all of this was happening so I often found my thoughts traveling to him and me thinking over and over that I didn't want to spend the last bit of my life suffering as he was. Unfortunately I was suffering, but it wasn't from physical pain that he was, it was from the mental pain that I was putting myself through. Anyways, that's a long story but it explains exactly what triggered my train of thought. That's what started my thinking process and why I still have that thought in my head over a year later. It's one of those things that, once your mind is wrapped around it, you simply can't get off of it but more likely lesson the amount of time you spend thinking about it. I still think of death every day. The panic attacks don't happen as often though so I'm thankful for that even though I can't keep my mind off of death. Its made me kind of see that ray of sunshine when the sky is completely overcast. I enjoy my time spent with the people I love because I know that might be the last chance I get to see them. I could be next or they could be next but we won't ever know until it happens. I would still like to post some of my original questions again and get your answers from you, but I also have a new one to add to the bottom of the list. Do you live your life now to make you happy now or are pushing yourself day after day to make yourself happy in the future? Do you tolerate your life now hoping whatever is making you sad or miserable will make you stronger and lead to better life decisions down the road? Are you trying to leave your mark on the world or are you just planning on going out like the vast majority of everyone else? Are you ever in the train of thought that life is ****** and you'll never be happy?
Insurance statistic: People who retire early live longer. They work that into annuities. And I'd always go for job satisfaction over salary. A friend was telling me how his firm promoted good people to one step beyond their competency level; in other words, they stopped moving up the ladder when they were found (and found themselves) in a job they couldn't do well. That way lies a stressful unhappy work life and you'll bring it home with you. And learn to resist advertising. Material goods are not the key to happiness. A full belly and warm toes count for 90%.
I see you're 22. In a few years time you'll find they've pulled the bedclothes off you in the middle of the night and you're freezing. But the cooking is nice too.
I just want to make a quick note and say that that statistic is wrong, at least around here it is. Statistics performed lately show that people who retire at 55 are more then likely to die sooner then people who retire at 65. The reasoning behind this is that most people who retire really just don't do anything and have abandoned their will to live. There's all kinds of statistics deal with with death that I get to hear at my job. What i've mentioned in the two posts before is just a slight glimpse at what goes thorugh my mind on a daily basis. Its just it's easier for me deal with things one by one and discussion is one of my ways to help cope with it.
The new work has a rather narrow sample selection - just Shell Oil employees. But I think it depends on your reasons for packing in work early - if it's to enjoy more leisure, that's OK. But if you enjoy working, keep at it, that's OK too. The important thing is to enjoy being alive. It doesn't last forever. But I'd love to know how everything turns out - you know, global warming, space flight, Microsoft... Stay curious, keep learning.
I pre emptively steal the sheets in the middle of the night, but she still cooks for me. In response to bloodcar's qestion, if you keep pushing for what you want out of the future then you can run right past the good stuff thats right now. Thats not saying that you should live wrecklessly now but you shouldnt get into the mindset that dosent let you take any chances, go out, live and dont dwell on what you cant avoid and try and make the best of it.
It is called "vagal tachycardia" and often gets confused for panic attacks. It (and it's bigger brother, vagal arrhythmia) are more commonly found amongst men, people in their thirties, and after prolonged periods of stress and/or metabolic disruption such as binge drinking, blood sugar disturbance etc. The central nervous system can be functionally divided into the sympathetic nervous system, and the parasympathetic nervous system. The former's job is to elicit a fight-flight response and get your body ready to deal with danger or physically demanding activity. The latter's job is to bring your body down again and relax it, so it doesn't burn out. They are both implicated in panic attacks and vagal tachycardia/arrhythmias, except that in the case of a panic attack it is certain panic thoughts and feelings that set of a self-reinforcing attack, while in the latter case prolonged stress or metabolic disruption throw the natural interactional balance between sympathetic and parasympathetic off kilter. The result is a sort of weird "panic attack" experience without the associated trigger --it is just as if your body just decided all of its own to go into fight-flight, which is what, in fact, it did. Of course it is pretty terrifying when this happens and you don't know what it is, and naturally people will assume the worst... Panic attacks, by the way, are self-conditioning. After a few attacks you are conditioned to subconsciously expect them in certain situations or with certain triggers. However they are preceded by feelings of tension and discomfort, whereas vagal tachycardia typically (and paradoxically) occurs in states of physiological relaxation. You never get vagal tachycardia while you are already physiologically exerting yourself. Panic attacks can be curtailed by interrupting the self-reinforcing spiral. Deep breathing and muscle relaxation are key. The more you practise, the better you get at it. The next step is to identify and stop panic-provoking thoughts and images, and replace them with thoughts/images of calm and control. Meditation techniques help. An attack of vagal tachycardia can be stopped by washing your face with cold water or putting a cold, damp washclot on the back of your neck. Alternatively, take a deep breath, hold it and strain moderately (as if you were going to the loo) for five seconds, then release. Both tricks kick off the sympathetic/parasympathetic balancing act and bring things back on an even keel. Both forms of attack always subside, because the body eventually winds down and the parasympathetic system reasserts itself. We all have needs to meet. Meeting those needs is experienced as rewarding. The trick, as always, is balance. Live only for the future, and you won't enjoy today; there is no reward (and you need those enjoyments to offset the daily life crappy bits). Live only for today and you experience existential emptiness and your life likely goes to pot for lack of foresight and planning. Leave something after your death but be modest in your ambitions --every little bit counts, like the hurricane butterfly, remember? Expect nothing, find surprise in everything. Job satisfaction needs to be in balance with money earned. Power needs to be in balance with responsibility. Make Set appropriate boundaries on life, people and on yourself. You are not as important as you think you are --everyone is replaceable-- but you are not as insignificant as you think you are either. Think of all the people who really add some quality to your daily life, even if just in a small way. Do they know what they mean to you? So do you know what you mean to others? Well, then (you may just be surprised). You are not held back by what you are, but by what you think you are not. Always make choices. We can't control life, but we can control how we deal with what life throws at us. There are no "right" or "wrong" choices, only good and bad ones. Often, there are only slightly better and slightly worse ones. Don't be too hard on yourself --you just did our best on what you knew and could at the time. Don't be too proud, either --you just did our best on what you knew and could at the time. This goes for other people too. Don't sweat the small stuff (and it is all small stuff), but do appreciate the little pleasures. When pissed off, get beyond the "f*** it" and see how that changes your perspective. Do good by stealth, and do not look back for reward or acknowledgement. Everybody has to learn sometime. Everybody has to pay sometime. The cost of living is high, and everybody pays. Make it worth the price. I'll stop now, before I sound too much like Mary Schmich.
