How To Talk About Everyone’s Favorite Topic — Death

Can we become immortal? If no, then what?

“group of people attending burial” by Rhodi Alers de Lopez on Unsplash

We seem to have lost the ability to talk about tough subjects like death, dying, loss, and grief. Yet, an average of 150,000 people will die worldwide today. Tomorrow. And the next day.

About 7,000 of those people will be in the United States.

At some point or another, either through loss, a dance with death, or by occupational design, we’ve all had an experience or two that’s helped us become acutely aware of mortality. The causes and effects of it. The existential terror of it. The improbability of it today, yet high probability of it over a lifetime.

Yet, even though we “know” about it, we aren’t talking about it enough. It’s the elephant in the room — and not just in a hospital or funeral home — but everywhere. And it’s an elephant we must address — through conversation and activation — or we will continue to pay a high price.

On one side of this conversation about death, dying, and the rest, we should be actively searching for solutions that help maximize the number of quality years lived by the human race.