HOW OFTEN DO YOU think about death? The thought of no longer existing is too painful and grim for many to bear and is frequently avoided, but one psychology expert thinks people need to face their fear of death head-on to live more fulfilling lives.
“My tip is to get familiar with what I call mortality math,” said Jodi Wellman. “Most people like to count their money, and I like to say how about we also count our Mondays?” Wellman, with a master’s degree in applied positive psychology, is the founder of well-being platform Four Thousand Mondays. She explained that the average person experiences an average of 4,000 Mondays in their life and advises people to check how many Mondays they have left every week using a calculator.
This serves as a reminder of the scarcity of time, pushing people to take action in their lives. It is based on a concept called “temporal scarcity,” meaning we value assets that are temporary more than the ones that are infinite. “We really have to get in tune with the temporary nature of our lives…because otherwise, we won’t take action, we will languish,” Wellman warned.
Most people settle into unfulfilling jobs and put off passions like going to that tennis lesson or learning Italian, but “later is an elusive time that may never come,” Wellman said. When you remember how many days you have left, you’re more likely to book that tennis lesson. If you’re going to die tonight, what would you wish you had taken action on? Maybe there’s an opportunity to start that today.
The idea that “mortality can be a motivator” has inspired Wellman for many years. “The juxtaposition of trying really hard to live our lives when one day ‘poof’ we may not be here. I’ve always found that fascinating,” said Wellman.
A key moment in her life that encouraged her to pursue the topic was her mother dying at the age of 58. “My perception was that she died full of regrets about all sorts of paths that she didn’t take, like business ideas she had that she didn’t take action on, books that she’d started to write, stories she wrote that she didn’t submit, and all these dreams that were dormant, and it was so very sad.”
For Jodi Wellman, it was a “visceral wake-up call” that anyone could die early but that it might be preventable to die without regrets. We should tune in to the fact that we’re temporary, not making it morbid necessarily, and use it as the sparkplug to get on with the business of living.
Daniel J Jachimiak, BA, is a writer and speaker. Dan can be reached at djachimiak@bex.net or 419-787-2036.
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