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Areas › Anger › Equanimity and perspective
This is not a cheerful thought and it is not meant to be. The question underneath is whether you want the years you have left organised around a grievance. Some people are moved by that when nothing else moves them. If it lands, let it point you at one thing you would rather be doing with the time, and start there this week.
Every soul will taste death (Quran 3:185). Held gently, that is less a threat than a reason to be careful about what you spend the time on.
آل عمران
كُلُّ نَفۡسࣲ ذَآئِقَةُ ٱلۡمَوۡتِۗ وَإِنَّمَا تُوَفَّوۡنَ أُجُورَكُمۡ يَوۡمَ ٱلۡقِيَٰمَةِۖ فَمَن زُحۡزِحَ عَنِ ٱلنَّارِ وَأُدۡخِلَ ٱلۡجَنَّةَ فَقَدۡ فَازَۗ وَمَا ٱلۡحَيَوٰةُ ٱلدُّنۡيَآ إِلَّا مَتَٰعُ ٱلۡغُرُورِ
Every soul will taste death and you will be paid in full only on the Day of Resurrection. Whoever is kept away from the Fire and admitted to the Garden will have triumphed. The present world is only an illusory pleasure
Qur’an 3:185read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A meta-analysis found mindfulness-based stress reduction improved stress, depression and anxiety in breast cancer patients, people living close to the fact of mortality. It says these approaches can help under real pressure. It does not test whether thinking about death motivates anybody to change, which is the claim being made here.
Nor Zuraida Zainal; Sara Booth; Felicia A. Huppert (2012). The efficacy of mindfulness‐based stress reduction on mental health of breast cancer patients: a meta‐analysis. Psycho-Oncology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
A clear sense of what your time is for makes a grudge feel expensive rather than satisfying.
Ask the question twice. What do you see, and what else do you see. What do you think, and what else do you think. The second one does all the work.
You do not actually know what they are about to say, or why they did it. Swapping the finished sentence in your head for help me understand costs nothing and changes the whole exchange.
Not knowing what to make of something does not have to be an emergency. See if you can find it interesting instead, even for a moment.