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?
