What I learned from the times I thought I was gonna die in the past year or two:
1. Remember death, don’t forget about it. This is key. Then when anger comes, it’ll dissipate faster, as soon as you realize this is not the impression you wanna leave behind in your loved ones, or in your own mind. Remembering death also helps you manage time and energy better. Is doomscrolling really how you want to spend your life? Is filling your mind with garbage really how you want to use your energy? Or on ruminating, creating fantasies, holding grudges…?
2. Guilt is awful, so make amends, at the very least in your heart and mind. Forgive yourself.
3. Don’t shrink. Once you’ve seen death in the eye you can’t really go back to reducing your existence to something so little. To something that begs, that grasps, or that holds itself to the standards & rules made by materialistic society. You are so much more than that, so much more vast. You cannot continue to hold yourself to such low standards in the way you act. The world will be what it will be, but you don’t have to succumb to that. You are not trapped. You can expand within the limits of your own beliefs. You are your own creation. Often times suffering is just a lack of perspective. There’s nothing to fear when you’ve already faced your own death.
4. Be intentional with your life and your time. Things are not just magically going to transform into your dream vision. You gotta work. You gotta act. You gotta participate— actively. You gotta do the thing, say the thing, put yourself in the situation. The crush is not gonna flirt with itself. The fear of singing on a stage is not gonna overcome itself. The family memories you wanna have are not gonna create themselves without your presence. The clothes are not gonna donate themselves. The creative project is not gonna materialize on its own. Etc. You understand?
5. Tackle your biggest character flaws and do it honestly and fiercely. Put the work in. Really be honest. Take responsibility. Take responsibility. First become aware, then observe in action, then create a plan to change the habitual pattern. You got this. It’s gonna take time and work. It’s gonna take long. But it’s one of the best things you can do to actually change your life’s (lives') trajectory completely. Anger? Get it in check. Possessiveness? Get it in check. Analyze the true causes, the root of it all, and tackle it as if your soul depends on it, because it does. How you live is how you die. Live angry? You wanna die angry as well? Nah, you don’t, baby!