I’m trying something new. Every day I’ll write for 10 minutes. I won’t limit what I write to any particular thing. It could be fiction, poetry, an essay, whatever. The goal is to write and then publish and share it. I need to get over my fear of publishing and I need to build a writing (and publishing) habit.

This is an essay I guess? Or it’s just a rambling blog post about how much I think about my own death. The fifth post in a row.

We’re all going to die. I mean, we all know that, but how often do we think about it? I think about it every day. Multiple times a day in fact. I have an app installed on my phone called WeCroak that multiple times a day will notify me with a quote about death, life, and other philosophically important topics to ponder. However, even before I had the app, I often thought about death.

I remember on the long drives to and from college (Marysville, MI to Marquette, MI is 459 miles) thinking about what would happen were a deer (or a bear or a moose) were to run out in front of me as I sped down I-75 in a snowstorm and couldn’t avoid it or would drive down an embankment once I hit it. What would happen to my family if I died? What would happen to my daughter?

But I didn’t just think about my own death. How would I react if my mother, father, or brother died? How would I react if my daughter died? From what I hear, this isn’t considered normal. A morbid fascination with death is unusual for most people. I don’t talk about death with others very often, and I don’t wear skulls or anything like that. I just think about it.

And death isn’t the only difficult thing I think about. What if my wife left me? Or What if I were paralyzed from a car accident? What if my teenage daughter became pregnant? Or What if the US government collapsed and we no longer had the safety and comfort we do now?

I don’t obsess over any of this. I would consider that to be unhealthy. But, I just give my mind a few minutes to think about how this would impact me or my loved ones. And, more importantly, I think about what I could do to either prepare for it or lessen the burden on others.

The stoics believed in accepting death as part of life and other things outside of our control. It allows one to think ahead of time what they would do should such an emergency arise. I especially think it’s important to think about what you’re leaving behind should you die unexpectedly. Is your family taken care of? Will they be able to get access to your bank accounts and important documents? Will they be able to turn your Facebook page into a shrine? Important things to think about.

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