Death

Death. Certainly quite a taboo subject, seeing as to how people from so many cultures tend to shy away from anything remotely connected to death - from using euphemisms (pass away, moving on..) to changing how we number our homes. (using '2A' to substitute the '4') Be it plain paranoia, or just conveniently 'going with the flow', 'death' seems to give many of us an uneasy feeling. (Yeah, feel that chill down your spine..)

Yet, even as the 50+ million people who 'leave this world' each year (that's about 100 per minute), what about the rest of us? The so-called 'survivors'. Are our entire lives meant to be merely 'survived'?

Every single one of us, all 6.6 billion individuals, are given one life to live - no more, no less. (Unless one believes in reincarnation, which I do not subscribe to) And in that one lifetime, we are given the opportunity to make use of whatever resources we can get our hands on, to do anything that our hearts and minds desire.

Some people would choose to scale the highest peaks, others to dive to the greatest depths.
Some people create records for the shortest time in doing something, others would endure the longest times.
Some people would devote their entire lives to serve a purpose, others would choose to end theirs to fulfill one.

In the end, it all boils down to choices. We all get one life to live, but we get to determine HOW to live it out. Would our lives then be one that revolves around the same mundane objects every day? Or would it be one that leaves a legacy that outlives us?

As ironic as it sounds, death actually gives meaning to life.

Imagine, if we were not be given a deadline to complete an assignment, would there be much motivation in finishing it quickly? Wouldn't the human characteristic of procrastination set in? And when it does, things are just put off day after day after day...

Moreover, this limitation makes us crave for more. We want more time to be with our loved one, more time to achieve a certain goal, more time to take the world in all its splendour.. Imagine again, if we were offered an eternity to enjoy something - would we still truly treasure and appreciate it the same way we do otherwise? Most probably, we would take it all for granted - another major human weakness.

The world around us will not change even if we were to pass on. The Earth will still take 24 hours, spinning at 1,700 kilometers per hour to complete a full rotation. However, depending on how we live our lives, we would have made a difference in the world. It might have been a small one, but we ought to remember that it takes 6.60 billion of us to collectively form human life on planet Earth.

If you were to die today, would your world have been the same as when you were born?

I certainly hope not!