The Art of Enduring: Finding Meaning in Life’s Challenges

More than fearing death itself, it seems we are far more scared of the pains that come before it, either in the form of physical pain, as it is with sickness, or in the form of anxiety, as a generalized fear of something yet to come.

There is less pain in Death than in waiting for Death. — Michel de Montaigne

Death is scary because it is unknown, we don’t know when it will arrive. That is the pain of it, the wait. A person that is let know that he has cancer, has suddenly fallen into what he knew all along, just more imminent. The wait for it is painful, death itself is not painful, as we don’t know it.

Death either was or is to come: nothing of the present is in her. — Michel de Montaigne

Think about it, do you know of anyone who has told you that death is painful?

And if you think about it, death isn’t as scary for people as some kinds of pain.

For example, many people fear far more the pain of public ridicule than death. To the point of taking their lives instead of facing the pains of ridicule, as many blackmailed people have done in our social-media-dominated world.

But we don’t see it that way, we tend to believe that the thing we fear the most is death.