Have you traveled in an elevator and noticed there was no 13th floor, as it rises from 12 to 14? Supposedly 80 percent of the hi-rise buildings in the US have left out 13 when numbering their floors and the majority of hotels, hospitals, and airports avoid using the number for rooms or gates. I believe that this unlucky view is based on historical events when a 13th guest was present. If interested, you’ll have to do your own research as I’m just pointing to this in introducing the following topic.
When I was living in China I noticed that the number 4 was avoided in this same way. I learned that this is based on language rather than history. The Chinese words for the number four and for death sound almost the same, only a slightly different tone. So 4 has also been considered unlucky as is 13 for us.
As we all know, there can be accidents, being at the wrong place at the wrong time. And we can live our lives with that not unrealistic fear in the back of our heads. But wouldn’t you agree that most of the time death is not due to an unlucky circumstance. It is usually due to the wearing out of the body. It may have been different 20,000 years ago for us humans, but now we usually die because our body is no longer able to function from a degenerative process. Our statistics show that heart disease and cancer as leading causes of death. (I do recognize that accidents are listed as one of the top ten leading causes of death in the US.)
Like other health care providers and really anyone reading here, I occasionally have the experience observing those at the end of their lives. Acupuncture is a valuable addition in palliative care to help manage pain, anxiety, nausea, amongst other discomforts. The World Health Organization defines palliative care as “an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problems associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial and spiritual.
I find it to be important to look one’s own mortality in the eye, accepting the reality of this truth. We don’t need to welcome it, but to honestly take into your heart the awareness that you will die. Even by sitting here and reflecting on this takes an amount of courage. Many people wait until their lives are threatened, usually in old age, to accept this. But my observation is that the sooner one allows their mortality to be a conscious reality, the freer they may live. One shouldn’t dwell on the fact that they will die, but becoming more comfortable with its reality may make us live in a more authentic way. You may realize that you don’t want to waste your time away knowing that it will end. You may want to spend more time with someone, or be more honest, or see something you want to see now rather than in an unknown future. You want to be proud of the way you lived your life; the relationships you have, the work you’ve accomplished, what you were able to witness.