My Evolving Relationship with Death

On my travels, I often find myself wandering through cemeteries. Sometimes it's by accident—I’ll mistake a green patch on Google Maps for a park, only to find myself surrounded by gravestones. Other times, it’s a deliberate choice, a search for a quiet, contemplative place. During a recent visit to a cemetery in Korçë, Albania, I realized how much my relationship with death has changed as I’ve grown spiritually.

As I walked among the graves, I noticed the headstones of young people whose lives had been cut tragically short. The reality of death hit me hard—it’s truly the full stop to a person’s story. After that moment, no matter how much those left behind grieve or honor the deceased, it’s for them, the living. The dead, I realized, are disconnected from these earthly rituals. This brought into focus a simple truth about my own life: death is final, and once it arrives, there’s no rewinding or fixing regrets. That thought has shone a light on my own life and how I want to live it.

The experience made me see how important it is not to carry regret with me. Seeing death’s finality reminds me of a simple yet profound truth: tomorrow doesn’t really exist. We spend so much of our lives chasing a better future, hoping for a better tomorrow, that we completely miss living today, right now.

It reminds me of something Steve Jobs once said: “Live each day as if it were your last.” For a long time, this felt like one of those cliché phrases that people throw around but never really absorb. Yet now, it resonates with me in a way it hadn’t before. The truth is often simple, and perhaps that’s why we tend to overlook it. We search for more complicated solutions, believing that they’ll somehow offer us better answers. But death, in its finality, is the ultimate reminder that the simple truth—that living fully in the present—is all that really matters.

This search for complexity is something I see all around us. Take “forest bathing,” for example. At its core, it’s just spending time in nature, something humans have done for centuries. But when it’s dressed up with a new name, people suddenly pay attention and even pay for the experience. We’ve forgotten how to embrace simplicity, and this is reflected in how we approach not just life but death too.

Different cultures around the world remind us of this in unique ways. In ancient Egypt, for instance, people believed so strongly in the afterlife that they buried the dead with treasures and food, ensuring they were prepared for the next world. In India and Nepal, death is seen as a transition, a part of a larger cycle of rebirth, which offers comfort by removing some of the finality of death. In Mexico, Día de los Muertos is a celebration where the living reconnect with the spirits of the dead, acknowledging death as part of life rather than something to fear.

Yet in much of the Western world, death is approached with fear and avoidance. Funerals are often somber, emotionally restrained events, where death is something to be managed rather than embraced. For many, there is no clear comfort in an afterlife, and the idea of death’s finality becomes something to fear.

Traveling and witnessing how different cultures honor death has profoundly influenced my perspective. While customs vary, a common thread unites them: the desire to find connection, meaning, and peace in the face of death. For me, it has been a reminder that how we live today is what truly matters. Every cemetery I visit is no longer just a reminder of loss; it’s a quiet nudge to be present, to live consciously, and to embrace life while I still have it.

Ultimately, death, in all its mystery and finality, teaches us one of life’s simplest and most beautiful lessons: to live fully while we can.