Are you ready to die?

 By Sarfaraz.k. Niazi

 Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure in life. Charles Foreman, final words before going down with the Lusitania, May 7, 1915.

 Death ends it all. There cannot be anything beyond it - as far as living is concerned. We die because our bodies have been programmed to collapse at a certain time. This time of our demise has been destined through statistical gyrations. Death also comes accidentally where man has some contribution to make. This includes not only such obvious challenges to Nature as attempting rolling down the Niagara Falls in a barrel, bungee jumping, skydiving, stunt driving, but also such apparently benign actions as not paying attention to environment around us.

 Death is Nature's best tool to assure life. The natural laws of selection and evolution require that the species turn-over to allow for regression of defective genes and the amplification of genes needed to cope better with the changing challenges of environment. Such cold description of death is not shared by many cultures. As a result, the taboos around death are fascinating and in abundance.

 Plato raised a query whether man should fear death? Fear being a survival response prepares us to avert the forces which can harm us. But no fear can prepare us to avert death; thus, fear of death is not a rational response, concludes Plato. Being anxious about death has more to do with loss of love and loss of material objects and, also to our security or suffering of those dependent on us. Fear of death can only be removed if the human mind is made to accept its fallibility, the need to moderate emotional attachment with other humans and total elimination of attachment to things material.

 However, in the modern times we invoke a new query, contrary to that of Plato. Why doesn't the modern man think of death, let alone have any fear of it. Talk to a dozen friends about their plans of dying and they will look at you with great amazement. Nobody plans for it, unlike what we do for the rest of our life events - going to college, getting married, having children, building home, taking vacations.

 Death is definitely not a very popular event to take into account, I conclude from talking to my friends. Why? I wonder? The irony is that whatever we do in our life is often quite uncertain. But we pay great deal of heed to them; what is dead sure - our death, we deal with a sense of oblivious. Perhaps because there is little we can do about it, so why worry about it. That may not be a bad strategy for a happy life, but as we examine, not talking or thinking about our ultimate demise keeps us from becoming really happy and fulfilled.

 The certainty of death requires serious consideration. A careful look at the graph shows that when you are going to die within 10 per cent of limits. These calculations are tedious and take into account life expectancy at birth, at adulthood, the steady decrease in infant mortality rate, rise in life expectancy and many other mortuary factors.

 It is commonly believed that we all have written in our fate when we would die, but you don't see too many 100 plus zombies running around. So, we must invoke the statistical principles and come up with a fairly accurate date of our sad demise - sort of an oxymoron.

 You will notice, if you pay attention to this illustration, that most of our readers who were born around the time Pakistan was created (and I believe that's the majority of Dawn Magazine readers) would be gone by the year 2030. That leaves about 420 months, 1700 weekends. And if you also believe in the statistics that shows that as we get older our ability to make something out of these weekends also declines.

 We've got about 1,000 weekends to enjoy life - and believe me that's not a lot when you look at the number of things that you've not done yet. Have you read Prince Machiavelli, listened to Yanni at the Acropolis, camped at the base of K2, tried to understand Aseer Abid's Punjabi translation of Ghalib, learned to say 'I love you' in French, seen the sun setting from the Rialto bridge, gone hiking with your son, and a few thousand other things that are such sheer pleasure to do? Fact is that you wouldn't be able to do half as many things as you want to do by the time 2030 arrives; then why aren't you rushing? It's because we do not include death in our yearly planning calendar.

 People do not take death seriously, as a result they end up losing so much in life. If our exit is dated, we ought to be planning for it aggressively, and not just twiddling our thumbs and letting the events take care of it.

 First let us take stock of our present lives. For our readers destined to be extinct around 2030, here are some questions to ponder upon. Are you married? If not, go ahead, it'll give you a few extra years to live but don't plan kids, they will bring you down. If you are married and have no children, don't plan for them now. How's your career? If you are still fumbling with what you want to do, give yourself no more than three years to settle down. If you got a stable job - cherish it. There aren't a lot of companies looking for rising executives in their mid-40s. If you are living in your home, you have won. But if you are not don't kill yourself to get a house now. (Remember, smart people build homes; smarter people live in them.) You want to set aside some money for the many things you have yet to do. And yes, in planning it, make sure you do not leave any assets for your children. Give them all the money they need for their education and after that make sure you clean the pot before you hit the dirt. If your parents had left you a big loot, they definitely missed out on a lot of fine things in life. Do not repeat their mistake. (Statistics shows that inheritance moneys are mostly wasted.)

 Plan for retirement, now. Set a date until you would like to work based on your financial strength and your health. If your health is poor take an early retirement. It is no fun retiring from your job and life simultaneously.

 One of the most important components of enjoying life before and after retirement is to cultivate a hobby. As soon as you can pick up a hobby, whether it is fishing, bird watching, cooking, writing, reading or whatever, adopt it. You are going to need it sooner or later. It is a necessity not a luxury. Set aside one day a week for absolutely no work, no obligations, no plans, no schedules to meet, but just for yourself. Soon, you will discover how many things you can do with yourselves.

 Death has long been a taboo and a topic of least interest to many; taking a realistic view of it can enrich our living months enormously and, let's die peacefully. And the time to do something about it is now, not in the hereafter.