Can we actually find peace before we die
[Music]
have you ever had
moments in your life of mindlessly
slogging along
just trying to get things done i have
when i used to be an insurance lawyer in
vancouver canada
just trying to pay off my student loans
after seven years of university and two
degrees
my job was to come up with a number
a so-called fair compensation for people
who died
in unexpected situations like car
accidents or during a surgery
i disconnected from my heart
instead of feeling sadness or empathy
for these human beings and their
families
i chose to look at them as a file or
case number
a monetary sum to be substantiated with
case law and evidence while my vital
signs were all normal
i felt more and more dead inside
this is my story my case for death
and why i now believe that cultivating a
meaningful relationship with death is
the key
to truly living life
my transformation started in 2010
i was standing in a long line waiting
for
coffee contemplating yet another stack
of files of dead people
when a sweet little voice inside of me
says
you need to wake up well duh i thought
no not from caffeine you need something
way bigger to shake up your life
i chuckled inside my head
sweet little voice you can tell me to
shake on my life or whatever you want
after you’ve paid off all of my student
loans until then
goodbye at that moment
something almost fairytale-like happened
this purple flyer caught my attention
it’s got a photo of a woman who looks
ridiculously happy from what
from running i read
run a marathon and fun ways to fight
leukemia
i was oddly intrigued and thought
well i don’t run at all but
maybe this is what i need to shake up my
life
so for the next three months i became a
part of a marathon team
to create awareness raise money
and fight for life my team and i
we met up on weekends and evenings to
fundraise and run together my teammates
became my friends
they had all either survived cancer or
they had lost somebody close to them
because of it cindy
she lost both of her parents to cancer
on the
exact same date one year apart
and there’s tony he was fighting cancer
going to chemotherapy in between our
meetings
i noticed the more i opened my heart to
my friend’s experiences and emotions
the more and more i felt alive
inside during one of our team meetings i
met the bravest boy i’ve ever come to
know
jason jason came into the meeting to
share his story with us wearing baseball
gear from head to toe
he was citing stats for home runs eras
rbis whatever these things are
it was his excitement that truly
inspired me
here was this boy who was only five
years old
he knew he had leukemia and could be
facing death
at any moment but he exuded so much love
and
passion for baseball and for life as if
there was
nothing that could stop him from living
to his fullest
only two weeks after that meeting i
heard jason had passed away
it truly hit me death wasn’t something
that
happened to other people or on paper
if it could happen to jason it could to
me
or to anyone at any time
jason’s death transformed the way i
looked at time
how it’s not guaranteed it is a gift
what was i doing with my gift i knew i
could not go back to the office and
sum up another life with a fair
compensation
i needed to live with as much love and
passion as jason did
so i decided to move to a place where i
felt
most alive well
driving to hawaii proved to be difficult
so
as a part of my new life i gave up gave
up on a few things
first i gave up my car for a bicycle
then i gave up my partnership track
which was a chance to become a partner
at the law firm
my mother still thinks that’s crazy to
this day
anyway i shifted gears
entirely
and after moving i decided to practice
law
differently
today i have my own law firm and i
practice estate planning
i help my clients navigate the archaic
set of laws that apply to
the distribution of possessions after
your death
i encourage my clients to create more
meaning with what they have now
rather than accumulating more to pass on
to their kids after they die
i’m happy i gave up on billable hours
instead
charging by set fees better aligns with
my newfound awareness that
time is a gift it cannot be defined
nor should it be exchanged for dollars
by minutes
i see every day how my work gives
clients a peace of mind
that their possessions would pass on
without disputes
to their loved ones but
as i would eventually find out from my
father’s death
an estate plan is only a small part of
what is needed
to be truly at peace with death
three years into my new life in hawaii i
got a call
out of the blue from my father’s wife
my father was dying from lung cancer
i flew into vancouver situated
myself around the hospital bed with my
father’s wife
and my half-sister both of whom i’ve
never spent any time with
my brother was there and so was my
grandmother
my father’s devastated mom
it was sad and the relationship
dynamics in that room felt awkward we
didn’t know what to say
we joked around a bit and made casual
conversations
but really we didn’t know how to say
goodbye
we weren’t brought up to talk about
feelings let alone
death and at the moment when a family
member is dying
in his final moments my father turned to
my brother and i
and said please forgive me
for breaking up our family
after he died my brother says
julie dad asked for forgiveness for the
wrong thing
he should have asked us to forgive him
for not spending any time with us
time we always think we have more of it
but in the end time has us
in the face of death we’re humbled we’re
forced back to the core of our essence
and we see that the only thing that
connected us to life
is the time that we were given
but if we continue to separate ourselves
from looking at
our moment of death through legal
documents
tax planning funeral planning life
insurance medical insurance
we continue to treat death as if it’s a
condition that’s totally foreign to us
we can go out pay somebody to try and
alleviate those
effects better yet cure it all together
we deny it we bargain with it we
hide from it what if we had the courage
to look at the moment of our own death
with
curiosity stephen levine wrote
death is a part of life when we fear
dying
we fear living having consciously
accepted my own death was one thing
but witnessing my father’s death through
our struggles to
say what mattered to each of us showed
me
how little as a society we were brought
up to make peace with our own death
i decided i needed to reframe the way i
look at death
and explore how it affects the way i
live now
i also ask myself how may i provide more
peace to
others in facing their own eventual
moment
of death
have you heard of a death doula
in very general terms a death doula is a
non-medical person
who provides emotional and spiritual
support to the dying
it intrigues many as a type of work
although it’s not necessarily a
designated vocational path
i took this training to expand my
capacity
to offer peace to somebody who knows
they’re about to die
this training did not teach me anything
technical
but it connected us to something we
already have within
that is our ability to be fully present
to somebody who’s dying
with an open heart and just fully
listen without any judgments
i believe that’s an important life skill
to have wouldn’t you agree
are modern stories about death taught me
that it is bad ugly and scary
we are to feel sad guilty and sorry for
somebody who’s dying
because it is a lost or a failure
but why do we actually notice what
happens after
death i questioned these modern stories
on death
and i realized how one-sided egocentric
the narrative is
about what is a very natural and could
be
beautiful and sacred process of death
aside from a medical science perspective
i believe it’s time for us to
acknowledge how
little we actually know about the
subject
i also got certified in practicing past
life regressions
through this perspective death may not
be the end
maybe more of a transition into other
lifetimes
this perspective allows me to comfort
those who are facing grief
or death knowing that their connections
with loved ones may continue to live on
whatever we tell ourselves right now
about death
will dictate how we spend our time
and in the end how we spend our time
determines
our quality of life
in the end how we spend our time
determines
our quality of life
we tell ourselves time is money
a long life is a good life a short life
is a tragedy
and a potential lawsuit having more
doing more being more looking better
these are all things that mark a quality
life
are the ultimate lie of all my value in
life
is determined by others
whenever we feel like we need more to
prove something
death reminds us at the end it’s not
about quantity
it’s about quality based on how we chose
to spend our time
if we are too afraid to look at death
because of our fear
we miss the opportunity altogether to
ask
key questions about what truly matters
in life
am i living fully within this moment of
time
or am i living the stories that keep me
in the place of fear
looking back i see how my fears kept me
separated from other human beings
so i wouldn’t have to justify the fact
that my work devalued human lives
i separated myself from my heart so i
wouldn’t have to process the difficult
emotions
i separated life from death so i
wouldn’t have to confront the reality
that my time here is finite
the stories that keep us in fear also
prevent us from embracing the natural
full spectrum of a human life and the
stories that kept
me feeling very dead inside
now no matter how much time my clients
spend in
saving for and planning out their
material legacy
after they pass away i noticed that
their children don’t remember them for
the possessions they’ve left behind what
they would always remember
are the unique moments that shape the
way they live
creating them into the person they
became
my father in his twenties with two
thousand dollars in his pockets
and less than twenty words in his
english vocabulary
convinced my mother to move with my
brother and i from hong kong
to middle of nowhere canada what we
would say is
in cantonese to start a new life
guess he wasn’t too afraid of living
fully back then
living in a new country with a new
culture
and a new climate system takes courage
and optimism these are traits that
created the person that i
am and were gifts from my father
that outweigh any amount of wealth
yet i miss my moment to thank him
and to say i forgive him and love him
in spite of the human frailties that we
all carry
although we’re not allotted with the
same amount of time here on earth
i’ve decided that death is fair because
it doesn’t discriminate
when it’s at your doorstep you can’t
negotiate with it or
beg it to go away no matter how much
money you have
that is how it reminds us to choose
wisely
and invest our time in the things that
are immortal
for me those things are unconditional
love
compassion forgiveness generosity
kindness inner wisdom and our
consciousness
for these are the essences of our being
that shapes the world around us and they
form
our real lasting legacies not something
we
write on a piece of paper
i’ve cultivated a meaningful
relationship with death
and it will continue to evolve as i
find more ways to create more peace with
it
and meaning ask yourself
what makes you alive inside
cultivate a meaningful relationship with
death
and invest your time in defining
yourself
with your immortal essences
now listen to your sweet inner voice
and look for the purple flyer in your
life
for your heart to follow i thank you for
your precious gift
of time
[Applause]