WHY WE MATTER TO THE WORLD

The dying have taught me one great lesson that I would never have learned without their help:

Most people are not afraid of dying; they are afraid of not having lived.

It is not the prospect of death that frightens most people. People can accept the inescapable fact of mortality. What frightens them more is the dread of insignificance, the notion that we will be born and live and one day die and none of it will matter.

People don't really want to live forever. Living forever would be like reading a good book, or watching a good movie that never ended.

People understand that the story of their lives has to have a beginning, a middle and an end.

What they desperate want is to live long enough to get it right, to feel that they have done something worthwhile with their lives, however LONG.