I Am Afraid to Die (Speech)

A Story by Lilian

Student project for my imaginative writing task.

While writing this speech, I encountered a statement, ‘Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.’, ‘And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition’, quoted by Steve Jobs in his speech to Stanford graduates in 2005.

Jobs mentions, that the thought that we will one day die pushes one to follow the will of the heart.

Believing we as people will be hesitant to risk, hesitant to change for the better, if they did not live each day like it was their last.

Well folks, ‘live each day like it was your last and one day you’ll be right’ would be a much easier message to convey to you today. But unfortunately, my accumulating thoughts had compelled me to doubt what I feel is an intrinsic characteristic of a living, breathing human being, which is the fear of death.

I can remember late one night, my younger sister whispered something ‘out of the blue’, that to me, sounded like a long-awaited question.

The room was quiet, and there hadn’t been anything sorrowful, anything melancholic or confronting mentioned. But she said ‘I am afraid to die’.

My thoughts hit me, and out came my response, short and without explanation, I merely said ‘I don’t think I’m scared ’, almost as if I was belittling her for being afraid. Yet, by no means am I insouciant of pain, loss and the state of being forgotten. But during the hours where I couldn’t sleep, I had pondered, I had asked myself, ‘will you be thinking about pain or loss after you die?’

At the time, it felt like I was slowly creeping into a predicament. I believe I still feel the fear of death but dying does not strike terror in me like it did before, it no longer has the same meaning in my head. The memories of past failure, the loss of precious connections and ultimately, the greatest regrets, the things that death taunt us with. They hold no true worth, they merely become empty threats as they disappear with us into the ground. Sure, you can go, run and chase life with all your might, but the finish line is still the same as those who choose to live with no aim, no passion, no substance. If nothingness is the end then anything before that is fundamentally, also nothingness.

I can understand that it is instinctual to desire to live in a meaningful way and experience life to the fullest. It is instinctual to detest the presence of death that can end and undo everything. However, what has allowed the build-up of this void within myself are the things I had collected during my time on earth. It has only lead me to believe that if death is the limit, then life is the most pointless thing in existence.

I have lived a privileged life, my parents exhausted their youth with work and study so that their three-year-old child could venture through their hometowns in East Asia, so that I, at age eleven could explore the country of South Korea, at age twelve - bathe in the beauty of Japan, at age fourteen- wonder the streets of Taiwan, at age sixteen- travel around the European continent. And at age seventeen, I have been given the chance to fly to the border of China and Russia, a place called Harbin, a fairytale built upon ice.

So how am I to challenge the way of those who toil in the dirt, just to remove the dullness and bitterness of their lives when I had been spoonfed so much.

It is because I have tasted the sweet honey of life and it didn’t suffice.

I will repeat that for anyone willing to listen, this life of mine did not suffice.

I was praised for being gifted, had the greatest of friends, never worried about the family’s bills, never had been bullied at school. But in my short, peaceful and fortunate life, the fruit I’ve harvested have still gone rotten.

How much value does happiness or experience hold when it's essentially purposeless, life is hollow in the face of the great equalizer that is death. While we are alive there will always be options, more to do, more to lose and we live with the fact that we can never be satisfied every day.

Hence, there will always be regret. But even if regret sleeps next to me on my deathbed, the consciousness to dwell on it will perish, regret is only finite, death had made everything fair, canceled out all the unevenness, rendered everything meaningless.

Only nothingness, pure, flat, unaltered, nothingness.

You are slowly inching to enter the state of absolute oblivion, so why should a dying man be afraid of abandoning his possessions, leaving with regrets when his mind will cease to exist moments later.

I believe this would have been my only line of perception, but then life would have been so much simpler. When the concept of God came into consideration, my belief about death wavered and ironically, my own existential thoughts became my philosophy's traitor.

I am aware that the words I’ll say now will negate every point I just made.

But, if there is the slither of a chance, death is not the end, if life equates to something more, something greater.

And I had lived a life with no value, believing it is useless.

I would die regretting forever.

I am afraid to die because that is the most terrifying reality I can comprehend, so think it through again and again. If death is the end, anything you do in life is not worth a penny, but if a place beyond death exists then what happens in this life could be the most crucial moment for any individual. Living would have a purpose, life would mean something bigger than ourselves.

So before your time is up, understand for yourself, what truly makes life worth anything, ask yourself, what would make say, ‘I am afraid to die’.