staring-at-the-sun-yalom

34 staring at the sun
mode, you turn toward such evanescent distractions as
physical appearance, style, possessions, or prestige. In the
ontological mode, by contrast, you are not only more
aware of existence and mortality and life’s other immutable
characteristics but also more anxious and more
primed to make significant changes. You are prompted to
grapple with your fundamental human responsibility
to construct an authentic life of engagement, connectivity,
meaning, and self-fulfillment.
Many reports of dramatic and lasting changes catalyzed
by a confrontation with death support this view.
While working intensively over a ten-year period with
patients facing death from cancer, I found that many of
them, rather than succumb to numbing despair, were
positively and dramatically transformed. They rearranged
their life priorities by trivializing life’s trivia.
They assumed the power to choose not to do the things
that they really did not wish to do. They communicated
more deeply with those they loved, and appreciated
more keenly the elemental facts of life—the
changing seasons, the beauty of nature, the last Christmas
or New Year.
Many reported a diminishment of their fears of
other people, a greater willingness to take risks, and less
concern about rejection. One of my patients commented
drolly that “cancer cures psychoneuroses”; another said
to me, “What a pity I had to wait till now, till my body
was riddled with cancer, to learn how to live!”