Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

by Atul Gawande

“If I die tomorrow, I’ve had a damn good life. I’ve done everything I could do, and I’ve done everything I ever wanted to do.”

Studies find that as people grow older they interact with fewer people and concentrate more on spending time with family and established friends. They focus on being rather than doing and on the present more than the future.

As people become aware of the finitude of their life, they do not ask for much. They do not seek more riches. They do not seek more power. They ask only to be permitted, insofar as possible, to keep shaping the story of their life in the world—to make choices and sustain connections to others according to their own priorities.

Courage is strength in the face of knowledge of what is to be feared or hoped. Wisdom is prudent strength.

What were her biggest fears and concerns? What goals were most important to her? What trade-offs was she willing to make, and what ones was she not?

At root, the debate is about what mistakes we fear most—the mistake of prolonging suffering or the mistake of shortening valued life.

Technological society has forgotten what scholars call the “dying role” and its importance to people as life approaches its end. People want to share memories, pass on wisdoms and keepsakes, settle relationships, establish their legacies, make peace with God, and ensure that those who are left behind will be okay. They want to end their stories on their own terms.

What is your understanding of the situation and its potential outcomes? What are your fears and what are your hopes? What are the trade-offs you are willing to make and not willing to make? And what is the course of action that best serves this understanding?

When I was a child, the lessons my father taught me had been about perseverance: never to accept limitations that stood in my way.