The Fear of Death

1070 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: People'S Attitudes Towards Death

Death refers to the end of worldly life. People fear death for a variety of reasons. They are afraid because it is the final moment of parting beloved ones, it may be a painful process, it makes them feel that there is a countdown for their existence and they may not achieve all they hoped or planned, or they may fear the unknown after death. Death is the final adventure as a person of this earth, it is the closing of the door on this earthly reality. An unnatural obsession and fear of death can lead to an inactive and deadened society, it is important to find a way to overcome these effects to cause good to come of the inevitable end of life.

Fearing death is ongoing because death cannot be avoided. Also, what comes after death is unseen. The effects of fearing death can sometimes be a positive force on people’s behavior, because it directs them to do good deeds in order to have a good reward in an afterlife. Some people who fear death and do not believe in an afterlife may spend every second of their lives indulging in the beauties of this life, without considering consequences. They are seen as materialistic and selfish due to the idea that there is no life other than the present one, thus they must enjoy the present in the way they like.

On the other hand, some people consider death as transitory stage to the other life. Thus, they prepare themselves for a life after death. This kind of belief comes from a religious commitment, or from some people who are suffering of such diseases prefer dying rather than suffering. This issue matters because it affects human behavior. For example, religious people are more likely to do good deeds for better spiritual preparation to face death. As a result, they spend their lives l...

... middle of paper ...

...ortant for people to feel comfortable with death and learn, through social means, that it is not a terrible thing. How the social world portrays death can have a serious impact on how one feels about the end of their life. It is important to find ways of motivating people to do good things with their life and build up their community before parting ways. It will always be a somewhat sad event for those left behind, but death must be embraced more as a chapter of life, a closing of one door and an opening of another. Only in this light can death be used as a benefit to society rather than a tool to terrify people into inaction.

Works cited

Becker, Ernest. The Denial of Death. New York: Free, 1973. Print.

Hanson, Robin. "Fear of Death and Muddled Thinking – It Is So Much Worse Than You

Think." (2005): 1-8. Web. 17 June 2011. .

Show More
Related

  • Exterminate All the Brutes by Sven Lindqvist

    984 Words  | 2 Pages

    Is it possible to live without fear of death? If you can, does it change your life and who you are as a whole? Lindqvist believes so. Early in the book he proposes the idea that with fear of death life has a deeper meaning. That only with the fear of death do...

    Read More

  • Fear Of Death In Edgar Allan Poe's The Cask Of Amontillado

    1329 Words  | 3 Pages

    Fear of the unknown, and fear of what is to come in our lives, has generations of people wondering what will our lives be like tomorrow or the next day. Death is always there and we cannot escape it. Death is a scary thing. Our own mortality or the mortality of our loved ones scares us to the point that we sometimes cannot control how we are dealing with such a thing as the thought of death. Why do we fear such a thing as death? We don’t know what happens after we don’t how it feels. The fear of death is different for most but it is most certain to come and we cannot hide from it. For death is just around the corner and maybe it’s will come tomorrow or the next day! We fear not death, but the unknown that comes from death, that is the

    Read More

  • Comparison: Tuesdays With Morrie, by Mitch Albom & King Lear, by William Shakespeare

    1244 Words  | 3 Pages

    Sogyal Rinpoche stated “When you start preparing for death you soon realize that you must look into your life now.and come to face the truth of yourself. Death is like a mirror in which the true meaning of life is reflected.” Death is imminent. Many people today fear death for various reasons. Some people are able to accept it, while others deny its existence.

    Read More

  • Thesis on Death and Grieving

    1104 Words  | 3 Pages

    Death is part of the circle of life and it's the end of your time on earth; the end of your time with your family and loved ones. Nobody wants to die, leaving their family and missing the good times your loved ones will have once you pass on. In the Mercury Reader, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross “On the Fear of Death” and Joan Didion “Afterlife” from The Year of Magical Thinking” both share common theses on death and grieving. Didion and Kübler-Ross both explain grieving and dealing with death. Steve Jobs commencement speech for Stanford’s graduation ceremony and through personal experience jumps further into death and how I feel about it. Your time is on earth is limited one day you will die and there are many ways of grieving at the death of a loved one. I believe that the fear of death and the death of a loved one will hold you back from living your own life and the fear of your own death is selfish.

    Read More

  • Death and Immortality in The Epic of Gilgamesh

    1379 Words  | 3 Pages

    nsciousness after death, or maybe a combination of both, which creates this fear. The fear felt is undoubtedly universal. However, the ways in which it is dealt with are varied and diverse. The concept of human mortality and how it is dealt with is dependent upon one’s society or culture. It is the society, which has the greatest impact on an individual’s beliefs.

    Read More

  • Terror Management Theory

    907 Words  | 2 Pages

    Terror management theory (TMT) asserts that human beings have natural tendency for self-preservation if there is threat to one’s well–being (Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski, 1997). It notes that we are the cultural animals that pose self-awareness on the concept of past and future, as well as the understanding that one day we will die. We concern about our life and death but aware that it is unexpected by everything. The worse matter is that we become aware of our vulnerability and helplessness when facing death-related thoughts and ultimate demise (Pyszczynski & Greenberg, 1992). The inevitable death awareness or mortality salience provides a ground for experiencing the existential terror, which is the overwhelming concern of people’s mortality and existence. In order to avoid the continued existence of threats, people need faith in a relatively affirmative and plausive cultural worldview and meaning of life (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1995). Cultural worldview is a perceptual construction in the society which explaining the origins of life and the existence of afterlife. We have to invest a set of cultural worldviews by ourselves that are able to provide meaning, stability and order to our lives and to offer the promise of death transcendence (Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2004). On the other hand, we hold a belief that one is living up to the standards of value prescribed by that worldview and social norm shared by a group of people. This belief is derived by self-esteem of individual. We maintain the perception and confident that we are fulfilling the cultural prescriptions for value in the society and are thus eligible for some form of personal immortality (Landau & Greenberg, 2006). We Together with the assump...

    Read More

  • Socrates and Epicurus - Live Life Without Fear of Death

    2744 Words  | 6 Pages

    Many people seem to fear death, but philosophers such as Socrates and Epicurus would argue that one has no reason to fear it. Socrates sees death as a blessing to be wished for if death is either nothingness or a relocation of the soul, whereas Epicurus argues that one shouldn't worry themselves about death since, once we are gone, death is annihilation which is neither good nor bad. Epicurus believes that death itself is a total lack of perception, wherein there is no pleasure or pain. I agree with Epicurus because Socrates doesn't give a sound argument for death as a blessing, whereas Epicurus' argument is cogent. I would also argue personally that death is not something to be feared because, like Epicurus, I see no sufficient evidence showing we even exist after death.

    Read More

  • Death in Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant

    455 Words  | 1 Pages

    When people ponder death they wonder about the unknown with trepidation. As a young man, William Cullen Bryant wrote the "Thanatopsis." His thoughts progress from the fear of death to the acceptance of the event. People should not fear death because everyone dies and becomes a part of nature.

    Read More

  • Death Anxiety And Self Esteem Essay

    938 Words  | 2 Pages

    Confrontation of death and the anxiety created by its inevitability can be considered as notable dilemma for humans (Letho, 200...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of What Really Matters At The End Of Life

    735 Words  | 2 Pages

    In BJ Millers TedTalk, “What Really Matters at the End of Life?” BJ Miller discusses on how we think on death and honor life. He speaks to the audience about how for the most people the scariest thing about death is not death itself, it is actually dying or suffering. The targeted audience is everyone in the world, because eventually everyone is going to die and everyone thinks about death. BJ 3 has big points in the article saying, Distinction between necessary and unnecessary suffering. Also by having a little ritual that helps with this shift in perspective. Another point is to lift and set our sights on well-being. We need to lift our sights, to set our sights on well-being, so that life and health and healthcare can become about making life more wonderful, rather than just less horrible.

    Read More

  • Fear of Death

    1658 Words  | 4 Pages

    Death it is something we all must face at one point in our lives or another. It is either a death of a loved one, friend or co-worker. Sometimes it’s the devastation from a natural disaster. No matter what makes us face the idea of death it is how we handle this realization that truly matters. When Gilgamesh is faced with the horrendous loss of his dear friend and comrade Enkidu he begins to fear death. In Gilgamesh’s youth he is proud without fear of death, it is not until he watches his friend die that his own mortality becomes a fear.

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay On Death And Dying

    1008 Words  | 3 Pages

    Death is the one great certainty in life. Some of us will die in ways out of our control, and most of us will be unaware of the moment of death itself. Still, death and dying well can be approached in a healthy way. Understanding that people differ in how they think about death and dying, and respecting those differences, can promote a peaceful death and a healthy manner of dying.

    Read More

  • Cultural Analysis On Death And The Afterlife

    1074 Words  | 3 Pages

    The concept of human mortality and how it is dealt with is dependent upon one’s society or culture. For it is the society that has great impact on the individual’s beliefs. Hence, it is also possible for other cultures to influence the people of a different culture on such comprehensions. The primary and traditional way men and women have made dying a less depressing and disturbing idea is though religion. Various religions offer the comforting conception of death as a begining for another life or perhaps a continuation for the former.

    Read More

  • An Analysis of Mortality in Hamlet by William Shakespeare

    2189 Words  | 5 Pages

    Intro : Introduce the concept of death, and how the concept of death is shown to be something to be feared

    Read More

  • Death In Life Essay

    915 Words  | 2 Pages

    Death is something that causes fear in many peoples lives. People will typically try to avoid the conversation of death at all cost. The word itself tends to freak people out. The thought of death is far beyond any living person’s grasp. When people that are living think about the concept of death, their minds go to many different places. Death is a thing that causes pain in peoples lives, but can also be a blessing.

    Read More

More about The Fear of Death

Open Document