Death Terrifies Me, But Not More Than Accomplishing Nothing

For the past couple of months, someone in my extended family has been losing her battle with breast cancer and we have reached the point where she won’t make it out through the week. With my recent brush with death of heart surgery at 22, I still have not fully recovered mentally or physically from the ordeal. I went to go visit this person today in the hospital and they were barely conscious with the amount of medication they were on to ease their pain.

I couldn’t help but to partially flashback to my time in the hospital and being the same way only about a year ago and a wave of anxiety came over me. I was ultimately able to calm myself down but I was hit with a realization that I am terrified of dying without contributing anything to this world.

I am not like many youths my age who see themselves as invincible, even before the heart surgery that idea was absent from my head. As a child who always worried and had anxious tendencies, the thought of possibly dying at any moment was a common one. I cant tell if I fear death itself, or the assumed pain that accompanies it, but for someone that isn’t particularly religious like myself, the unknowing keeps me awake at night.

I wish I was more religious and believed in an afterlife, but my skepticism just doesn’t meet in line with that idea. Perhaps if I did believe, my fear of death wouldn’t be as great, as it stands I only believe this is the only chance we get to live our lives. However, for myself, I feel like I want to desperately make a mark on this world rather than live my life happily. Perhaps it is youthful angst, but I want to accomplish something notable before I die and everyday that passes and it doesn’t happen, I become more and more afraid.

When visiting the hospital with my father today, I could see the look in his eyes while he attempted to talk to the family member we had gone to visit. She is only a few years older than him, and the look in his eyes I saw was the realization of mortality and how close he could possibly be to the end as well. Im terrified of death, but even more im terrified I will wake up at 50 and have thrown my life away, doing nothing of value.

Maybe if I just didn’t care about anything, I would live a happier life, but at the same time I am finding it impossible to do such a thing. No matter what I do, my subconscious refuses to obey my active thinking. I think ultimately the fear of being forgotten is what keeps me up at night. I want to know that if I die in my sleep, people will remember me in a hundred years. If you read this thank you for indulging my rambling, a lot has been on my mind today and I had to get it out somehow. Let me know about how you feel , I would like to hear your perspective, or just simply know im not alone here.

-Calaber24p