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I cared though, and I knew where this was heading. 

I sprinted after them hoping to catch the shopping cart before it had a chance to flip over. Somehow I managed to catch it right before the big moment and told them, “You guys have to be careful. You could have gotten hurt or even worse, died.” One of the kids looked at me point blank and said, “You’re probably going to die on Monday or Wednesday” and then I woke up.

How’s that for a dream? Save a bunch of reckless kids just for them to tell me that I’m probably going to die. Nice.

Waking up that morning, at first I thought I didn’t care about the dream, but the way it made me feel––it’s important to pay attention to how dreams make us feel rather than the dream itself––stuck with me all day. It started out as a small knot in my stomach that slowly snowballed into an all-consuming feeling of dread.

Did I really think that I was going to die on Monday or Wednesday? Not really. But I also couldn’t deny the fact that the nature of the dream itself had me extremely stressed out.

All week all I could think about was the dream and ultimately, death and dying. “If that Monday was to be my last day here on earth, how would I feel?” Did I feel content enough to leave it all behind? Some variation of this question became my daily meditation. Morbid, I know, but blame the fuckings kids, not me. Little shitheads. 

Before I say what I am about to say, let me clarify that I do not want to die (neither did Epstein). Ok. Good. Now that that’s settled, after thinking about that question, like, every hour on the hour, I realized that there was nothing I felt that I needed or wanted to do before I died (if I was to die), but rather, it was my friends and family that I would miss the most. 

This might seem like a no-brainer, but think about how many people have a bucket list of all the things that they want to do before they die (myself included). We think it’s these ‘things’ or ‘experiences’ that we want to see, do, or try before we die, and if we don’t, we’d regret everything. Maybe to some degree this is true, but speaking for myself here, after a certain point, isn’t it all the same shit?

Allow me to explain.  

To do more things or to seek out new experiences would just be an insatiable pursuit for more––and I’m not saying it’s a bad thing to seek out new experiences, but after a while how much more do we really need, or rather, how much more do we think we really need in order to be fulfilled/content? 

When we treat these experiences only as pursuits that will bring a means to an end, this keeps us trapped on our little hamster wheels. More, more, more! we say, as if visiting our 8th country or experiencing another new novel adventure is going to scratch our itch. What we’re really seeking in those moments is complete presence, something that can be obtained free of charge where ever you are. 

Again, I want to stress that pursuing experiences is not a bad thing, but if I was to die tomorrow, I wouldn’t be bummed out that I never made it to Japan or didn’t complete a full thru-hike of the Continental Divide Trail. I’m sure they would be amazing experiences, but what I’d really want is that extra, uninterrupted time to be with the ones that I love most. That’s what truly matters in this life.

Before I go, I’ll leave a meditation from a book, Buddhism Without Beliefs by Stephen Batchelor, that I read years ago as a thought experiment about death. It may seem morbid to think about death, but I personally believe that it is one of the biggest subconscious driving factors that fuels a lot of the world to act the way that it does do. The thought that one day this will all be gone is almost too much to bear. But what if it doesn’t have to be? Rather than spend our time living in fear of losing it all, what happens if we can make peace with it before then? Oh how sweet life could be.

“Since death alone is certain and the time of death uncertain, what should I do?” – Stephen Bachelor