It is common for people to say that what’s most important to us becomes blatantly obvious when we are on our death bed. I believe it was Steven Covey who said “nobody on their death bed wishes they had spent more time in the office.“ 

Imagine you go to the doctor complaining of headaches, and find out that you have a bring tumor and 1 week to live. Only a single week left in your life. What runs through your mind? What is it that you want most for this last week?

I think that this type of hypothetical scenario has its place, but I do not agree with its conclusions. Such a thought experiment usually concludes with “and thats why family and loved ones are all that really matters” – or something along those lines. 

Don’t get me wrong here, blogreaders of the interweb, I certainly love my family. In fact, I have been more engaged in my close friendships and familial bonds than ever before in my life – and its a beautiful thing. 

What I am proposing, is that our careers, creative outlets, hobbies, and even wealth DO in fact hold value to us, but the situational value of these things is depleted in the deathbed scenario. Hence, I believe that it is not appropriate to say “well, people on their deathbeds don’t value all that stuff, why should you think its valuable?”

Allow me to explain.

Let us say that before this terrible brain tumor incident, you had stayed at the office late to save up for a 20 foot motor boat. You’d always wanted a boat to go exploring with or to take the kids out on. Before your deathbed experience, you might have been excited at the office, engaged in your work and eager to purchase the boat of your dreams. You thought you had so much time ahead of you to enjoy the boat in whatever way you wanted.

On your deathbed, the boat of course seems useless, you certainly cannot enjoy it now – and so its value is diminished in your eyes. Now you might curse the days you spent in the office working towards it.

Am I saying that the deathbed scenario skews the value of things for us? Not necessarily, no… but in this case, it might be so. I do believe that the impact of the deathbed situation can bring about shifts in our values that do not necessarily constitute realizations of what is genuinely best for our fulfillment. It can be a situation where fear and doubt invade our minds and make us yearn for certain things over others.

We might compare the deathbed situation to another potentially traumatic situation – a breakup. Lets say that you are happily committed and engaged with your partner, and out of the blue they break up with you. In this situation, we may come to believe that the relationship is what was really most important in life. Since we no longer have it, we might lean on our good friends and close family members and view our bonds with them as high value – while we seem to “realize” how other things like career advancement, wealth, and hobbies are rather meaningless.

In both cases, we appear to come to the genuine “truth” of our experience, we seem to find the philosopher’s stone to our fulfillment.

I argue, however, that in both cases the perception of our needs is grossly oversimplified. In both cases we are in a scarcity position – a position where something has been or will be taken from us. 

Lets conduct a thought experiment and twist up the components. 

 

 

What if you lived and worked with your entire family – parents, spouse, children all under one roof. Lets say that your relationships with your family are fantastic – you give each other perspective on life, spread joy through jokes and stories, and genuinely have positive intent towards one another. 

What if twice a week you were able to practice painting. Hypothetically you own the only set of paint brushes in existence. Lets say painting is absolutely something that you adore – it is a way for you to connect with yourself, to release tension, to experience a merger of action and awareness. It is a massively important facet of your life.

One day you awaken to realize that all of your artwork and painting supplies are mysteriously gone. Maybe they had been stolen, maybe you lost them – but either way, you know you’ll never see your artwork again and you can’t buy new painting supplies because you had the only brush set ever created. You become upset and distraught. 

If in this distressed state, someone asks you about what is important in life, do you think family would still be the first thing you’d mention? My guess is that in this case it would not.  My guess is that since you are with family all the time and art is your treat (which you have recently lost), you will mention art early on in your list of important aspects of fulfillment.

From this perspective, you have recently lost art. Recently, art is what has effected your quality of life most poignantly. Hence, you may say “when it really comes down to it, artistic expression is what matters most. Nothing else can provide us with such a rejuvenating, expressive experience, art is what makes us human.”

Does this seem like wisdom? Does it sound as profound as maybe… the “family is all that matters” proclamation?

From what I can tell, the “family” and “art” situations have one common thread: loss brings their perceived value to the forefront. They are the largest influencers of our emotion at that time, which implies that they are the largest influencers of our quality of life during that time, which means they are what will appear to “matter” most during that time.

 

 

In the case of the deathbed, we might know we will not have time to value out material possessions, and we might know we will not have time to see the fruits of our projects and productive or creative labor. Its is likely that in such a situation we would know that soon we would never see our family or friends again. In a situation filled with fear and uncertainty, the comfort of warm human contact might be the most fulfilling experience imaginable. 

We see something that we believe will fulfill our needs, and it becomes priority number one.

If you were the artist in the other example, having a loving family with enriching interactions is expected, is normal. In this case, the rare instance of painting, or artistic expression – thats what is unique – thats what has that illusive shimmer that you (and all humans) are so drawn to. 

Hence, when this creative outlet is taken from you, you deem it to be priority number one. Whatever has the illusive shimmer often has the falsely percieved quality of the “fix.” It is what will “make things better.” We might say “If I could only have *******, I know I would be fulfilled forever, I know its all that matters.” 

This, of course, is an illusion. We cannot be sustainably fulfilled by something else, by a factor added to us from the outside. Be it an outlet for art, be it romance or sex, be it material possessions, be it rank or accolades. 

Think of a peasant man from the 1700s, who never was able to go far from his small farming town. All he ever wanted to do was travel, see new people, enjoy new sights. Imagine transporting him to the present, and giving him all the money he could ever need to travel wherever he wanted and stay wherever he wanted. 

How long would his bliss last for? Would he float in a sea of bliss for the rest of his life?

Imagine a man at age 40 who has been blind since age 7, and has been depressed about his impairment ever since. What if he regained his ability to see overnight.

Would his depression dissipate, forever replaced by joy?

The answers are all “NO.”

I am not at all pessimistic about the human condition, but it is silly to believe that ANY external change could bring about infinity sustained emotion, either “good” or “bad.”

Why is this the case? I’m not sure, but it seems likely that evolution designed us so that external changes would not be capable of permanently emotionally shifting us.

Short possible explaination as to why this is:

There was a caveman who became lastingly depressed after not catching a rabbit – he wasn’t motivated at act and to catch other rabbits because he was sad and mopey all the time and so he starved and died.

There was another caveman who became lastingly joyous and content after successfully catching a rabbit – he wasn’t motivated to act and to catch other rabbits because he just sat around and smiled in glee and so he starved and died.

 

 

 

 

This has to do with the mechanism of “becoming normal” that occurs in our experience all the time. We get used to EVERYTHING. If you don’t believe me read “Man’s Search for Meaning.” For more on this topic, check out my article called “Things Get Old” under the “Inquiry” category. 

So, where are we going with all of this?

So… what matters?

What matters to us at any time is what impacts our emotional experience – and so the experience of our quality of life – at any given time. This might be familial love, this might be romantic love, this might be curing a debilitating disease, etc… The fact of the matter is that “what matters” is not static at all – and so to call anything “what matters” seems tremendously inaccurate. We have many facets of needs, none of which are more important than the others until we focus on them and depend on them.

To the depressed and blind man, the beautiful realm of sight might be “what matters” (assuming his familial / creative / romantic love are satisfactory… or at least assuming that the idea of these factors do not effect his emotional states more than the idea of blindness). However, if he gained his sight back, something else would probably become “what matters.”

We don’t magically gain a profound insight into what matters for our lives by being on our deathbed or having something taken from us. For some people, these instances might spur insightful thought processes about what we associate pleasure and value to – or what we associate pain to. 

What these extraordinary situations do is they change what we believe most effects our emotional state – and so this causes a change in “what matters” of us, sometimes in the short term and sometimes in the long term.

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To wrap up, I believe that having an idea of our core values is very useful. However, it would be foolish to believe that any one factor is sufficient for our holistic fulfillment in life.

The illusive shimmer is so very appealing, and its so easy to believe that one facet of our lives – one person, one event, one award, one accomplishment or series of accomplishments - can bring lifelong satisfaction. 

However, we must keep in mind that no external event can ever create lifelong emotional states. It is entirely dependant on the value we associate to it and how much weight we allow it to hold in our minds.

 

• Understand that there is no concrete label on what is meaningful (this goes for ourselves, never mind the entirety of our rare).
• Do not be convinced by the illusive shimmer.
• Develop in your entirety, taking into account all the important facets of your life.

 

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