Why Fear Death?

Josh Finds a Skull, Emily Slofstra

Epicurus once said, “Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.” There are words such as these that float around in the midst of our existence, yet human beings are insanely preoccupied with death. They are preoccupied with the concept of it, how it happens, and what happens after they die. These are questions that are, for the most part, unanswerable.

In some cases the obsession with wondering becomes overwhelming, and one forgets to live due to a constant worry that death will be the worst experience of their lives. I think this is a mistake. When one spends so much time obsessing over their death, they forget to live and eventually they begin to miss out on the moments that they would have otherwise remembered forever. Each day darkens and through their obsession they are losing what they had of their lives. These people are essentially experiencing death everyday because they are unable to let go and live their lives without a constant state of worry.

We shouldn’t fear something we can never know because, as Epicurus said, death is nothing to us. With that being said, our lives are everything to us, and it seems rather pointless to waste our lives thinking about not having them. Death is inevitable; I’d rather make the moments I have now count instead of worrying about something that is nothing.