There are certain conversations that rarely happen in everyday life.
Not because they are unimportant, but because they sit just beyond the edge of comfort. We sense them, we occasionally brush past them, but we rarely linger long enough to explore them.
One such conversation is about mortality.
For most of our lives, the idea remains distant — something that belongs to philosophy, or to “later.” We are busy building, raising, striving, solving. The horizon feels far away.
But somewhere in the later decades, the awareness becomes more personal. Not dramatic, not overwhelming — just quietly present.
Perhaps it is triggered by the passing of someone we knew. Perhaps by a health scare. Perhaps by simply noticing that time has moved faster than expected.
In our culture, there is a phrase — smashan vairagya — the temporary detachment one feels after attending a funeral. For a brief moment, life appears in sharp clarity. Petty worries recede. We resolve to live differently.
And then, slowly, routine returns.
But what if the invitation is not to feel this awareness only in moments of loss, but to integrate it gently into how we live — not as heaviness, but as perspective?
The Bhagavad Gita reminds us that change is woven into the fabric of existence, that what comes will also pass, and that clinging too tightly often creates suffering. In a similar spirit, traditions like Vipassana — drawing from Buddhist insights — invite us to observe impermanence not only in life’s big events but in everyday experience: sensations arise and fade, emotions come and go, circumstances shift.
“This too shall pass” is not merely a comforting phrase. It is a quiet truth that softens both joy and difficulty, reminding us to hold life lightly.
Seen this way, awareness of mortality need not create fear. It can create clarity.
When we recognise that time is finite — however long it may be — priorities naturally reorder themselves. Small irritations lose their grip. Conversations become more sincere. Gratitude deepens for ordinary moments: a shared meal, a familiar voice, a quiet morning walk.
I’ve noticed that people who make peace with this awareness often live with a certain lightness. They are less hurried, yet more present. Less anxious about outcomes, yet more attentive to experience.
There is also a subtle freedom in acknowledging limits. When we stop assuming infinite time, we begin choosing more consciously — what to pursue, what to release, whom to spend time with.
Of course, this is not about dwelling on endings. It is about enriching the present.
Perhaps the real question is not “How long will I live?” but “How fully am I living now?”
If longevity gives us more years, it also gives us an opportunity — to live with open eyes, aware of life’s impermanence, yet deeply appreciative of its presence.
Because when we make peace with the fact that life is finite, something unexpected happens.
We stop postponing living.
