The Book Description:
This is my last book, and I think my “best
book” to date.
Of course, most authors think that their current publication being their “best” so far. But I think that this is my “best book” because I earnestly believe that I was “inspired” to write it.
Many months ago, I started to notice my inspiration when I was sleeping. Unlike some writers who’re more creative at dark hours, I never wrote anything at night due to my poor vision. But many new ideas just popped up into my nightly dreams as if someone was speaking to me while I was sleeping, telling me what to write and what not to write. My bursts of inspiration continued for many months, and during some nights I even woke up and had to jot down some key points before I could go back to sleep again.
I noticed that my inspiration also began to happen during the daytime. Sometimes as soon as I turned on the television or switched the channel I was watching, I became instantly inspired by a word or a phrase that was said at that very moment. I believed that God was inspiring me. So, through my daily prayers, I also began to ask God to continue to inspire my writing.
When I began to tell those close to me that I was writing a book on “your death”, their immediate response was: “How gross!”
If my book were to focus on “how” you’re going to die, it could indeed be “gross” because you’re living in a world rampant with natural disasters and physical violence. But my book focuses on your “positive” aspects of living before you die: WHO you can become—a person of love and connection with others; HOW you can live longer—if you wish to extend your existence; WHAT you can do with yourself—before you exit from this world; WHERE you will go when you actually die—somewhere or nowhere.
Your “death and dying” is a fact of your life—not something “gross” to avoid or to talk about.
This is my last book because I’m growing older. If I continue to survive, I’ll spend the rest of my life reviewing and revising some of my books published decades ago.
Stephen Lau
A Sample from the Book:
Your Existence
Is “your death” the destination of your life? Well, maybe or maybe not.
Do you want to die? Probably not.
“No one wants
to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there.
And yet death is the final destination we all share.” Steve Job
“As
no one has power over the wind to contain it,
so no one has power over the time of their death.”
Ecclesiastes 8:8
Life and Living
Like everybody else, you exist in this
world because you were given the breath of life. If you’re a believer, your
existence is a result of the Creator’s unfathomable plan and destiny for your
life and living in this world.
“Then the Lord
God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life; and man became a living being.” Genesis 2:7
According to the Chinese, all humans are given a certain “number of breaths” at birth that determines the length of their life and living in this world. That explains why Chinese exercises, such as Qigong and Tai Chi, focus so much on extending the breathing in and prolonging the breathing out. Even Western science has now attested to the fact that rodent, the animal in the animal kingdom with the shortest breaths, has the shortest lifespan, while tortoise, the animal in the animal kingdom with the longest breaths, has the longest lifespan. So, having “longer breaths” may extend your lifespan.
On the other hand, if you’re an unbeliever, your existence comes from your parents.
No matter who you think you are—a believer or an unbeliever—you don’t have much of a choice, you were given your life and living to exist in this world for a certain time.
Realistic Realities
You know the reality that you’re mortal and your death is as inevitable as day becoming night.
“Is there anything I can do about my mortality?” This might be a question that you’d like to ask yourself, especially as you continue to grow older and more senile.
First, your perception of your own mortality changes with age and time. If you ask a young adult if he or she would want to live long or longer, probably the answer is “I don’t know” or “I just don’t want to grow too old and decrepit, like my grandparents.” A young adult’s perspective of mortality also explains why many of the younger generation are living a reckless lifestyle as if there’s no tomorrow.
Another reality is that your perception of mortality will depend on your life experiences, such as having a family of children that you’d want to take care of, or being successful in your career with all the trimmings of a luxurious lifestyle that you’d like to continue to indulge yourself in. A longer lifespan would then become an “extension” of your own legacy or a “continuation” of your enjoyment of the fruits of your own accomplishments. For example, the inscription on the tombstone of Bruce Lee (李小龍), the Hollywood Kungfu actor, reads: “The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering.” That says much about the hope of many, maybe including you too, to extend beyond the grave.
As aging continues, the reality of your fear of death or of the unknown ahead of you might also dawn on you, driving you even into craving for a longer lifespan to delay and to defer the inevitable end.
Indeed, like many others, you might have developed different perspectives of your own mortality, depending on your upbringing, your own life experiences, your religious beliefs, and the meaning of death and dying to you.
The reality is that if you focus too much on death, then you might create your death anxiety. On the other hand, if you deliberately deny the existence of death, you might then become the ostrich burying its head in the sand.
Since the beginning of the 20th century, the life expectancy of Americans has significantly increased from 47 to almost 80. So, how long do you wish to live if you just don’t die? And what would you do with the rest of your life if you just don’t die?
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