Awareness of death is meant to motivate, not paralyze

This world can be a scary place. To begin with, our existence here is fragile; we know that we’re vulnerable to injury and illness and destined to die. This distracting reality can unnerve us and make living a frightening experience.

Worries

Picturing bad things happening over and over again is an attempt to prepare for the worst and thereby somehow reduce the sting when tragedy does strike.
Unfortunately, this strategy doesn’t actually work. Intense pain still accompanies tragedy and anticipating it only robs us of feeling calm and happy when we actually had the opportunity for that. “Bad” things will happen and will have to be attended to when they do, but “dying a thousand deaths” in advance doesn’t actually help.
Death Consciousness
These days, death consciousness is at an all-time high. Screens, radios, and papers all shout the daily toll of the latest threat to life: the coronavirus. So many cases reported in such and such a location today. So many deaths reported in this locale and that. We hear, “New strains are coming, and they’re far more deadly!” and “We have a vaccine, sure, but don’t let your guard down: It’s not necessarily going to work for everyone, and anyway, the new strains may be resistant to it.”
And just in case all that isn’t enough, there’s the all-time favorite: “Life can never go back to normal, you know; we’ll have to be wearing masks and social distancing from now on as a way of life. This thing is never going away.”
Those who watch the news are pummeled daily with such tidbits, leaving their brains on a constant drip of negativity. Some people will laugh it all off. Some will feel a tad concerned. But many, especially those in locations where the government and population have adopted a highly restricted lifestyle in the name of safety, are consumed with anxiety.

Staying Safe

Indeed, precaution is in order. Where there is danger, we must be careful. Since we know that driving can be dangerous —possibly crippling and potentially deadly — we wear our seatbelts and follow the driving laws of the land so that we don’t endanger ourselves or others. We take life-jackets on boat rides, wear helmets when we ride our bicycles, and locate the exits on planes when we fly.
It’s a mitzvah to guard our lives. Being careful to do so not only prolongs our opportunity to serve Hashem with free will, but also gives us better quality of life. Being healthy is a lot more fun and energizing than being sick.
But although last year alone, 1.3 million of us worldwide died in car accidents, 2.5 million of us died of COVID, 10 million of us died of cancer, and 17.5 million of us died of heart disease, most of us just want to get up and get going each morning. We don’t want to think so much about death and dying. In fact, we just want to live in the healthy state of denial that’s required to allow us to leave our homes and live our lives.
Truth is, we don’t have total control over how healthy we can be. Even when we do everything “right,” we can still succumb to illness if Hashem wills it. In fact, we need to be clear: There’s nothing we can do to keep ourselves totally safe. We and our loved ones are vulnerable, and we and they will die, one way or another.
We can focus on that idea or we can live life.
Lessons from Corona
If Hashem has sent us an overdose of death consciousness right now, it must be for a good reason. Surely its purpose isn’t to paralyze us. More likely, it’s to remind us that we haven’t got forever, that our time could run out suddenly — at any moment — and that we’d better use it wisely.
Appropriate death consciousness can help us realize that now is the time to love, to repair our relationships, before it’s too late. Now is the time to be happy. Now is the time to fulfill our spiritual, emotional, and physical potential, to accomplish everything we can because who knows how much longer we have to do that? We need to enjoy and employ every precious moment; we need to live well — as long as we can!

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue  740)