Photo Credit goes to Alexandre Chambon @goodspleen
I have been reading the book The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying; and my Mom asks, why am I reading that book and what does that have to do with insurance? Patience, I will get to that. 🙂
The book is based on Buddhism and the Eastern way of looking at Living and Dying. It talks about how in the East they live their life accepting and preparing for their death, but not in a morbid way. They have a very clear understanding that they will die and when they do they want to be prepared and hopefully have a successful reincarnation.
Now whether or not you believe in Buddhism, Christianity or any other Faith is not really the point here. The majority of Westerners live our lives like we will never die or have an illness or injury. With Insurance I deal with this everyday. I am working with a young man right now that is in a job that requires a lot of physical work and he feels that he would be able to work through illness and/or injury. What is even more interesting he works in the health care field and sees people show up everyday with illnesses and injuries that are debilitating.
So I go back to “Does the East Have it Figured Out?”. How would our lives be different if we accepted the fact that we are human and planned accordingly? Why would I be able to work through a debilitating illness or injury when other’s can’t? Do I have some super power that the next person doesn’t have?
I have grown up never really speaking about my death or accepting the fact that I have an expiry date. The truth is I just don’t know what the date is.
What would I do different if I accepted death? Would I take more time off, spend more time with family? Spend less time on unhealthy relationships? Would I prepare better for the eventuality of my mortality?
Glendinning Insurance Services, your Resource Specialist. Helping people plan for life.