How do I come to terms with the fact that life ends?

The fact that life ends can make ordinary time feel both precious and impossible to use well enough. You may find yourself trying to live so meaningfully that you will never regret having been here.

That is a formidable demand to place on a Tuesday. Fear of death deserves attention, but it need not become a supervisor inspecting every hour for sufficient significance.

Try noticing what the thought brings up: separation from people you love, unfinished work, the loss of experience, uncertainty about what follows. Different fears may need different conversations, and you need not settle them all through one philosophy.

If the fear becomes persistent or overwhelming, qualified support can help. You are allowed to seek company in the question without expecting anyone to produce an answer that abolishes it.

Jing asks which fear lives inside the larger one. I would also ask whether accepting mortality must mean becoming unafraid. You can acknowledge a fact and still feel sorrow or resistance towards it.

Different traditions offer different accounts of death. I would not pretend to settle those differences on your behalf. What we can observe is that time is limited and relationships take place within it.

This may invite a particular action rather than a final conclusion: say something honestly, attend to someone who is here, stop postponing a modest pleasure until life has become secure.

You need not make every day extraordinary. An ordinary day lived with attention is still part of the finite life you are trying to value. Its ordinariness does not make it wasted.

I asked Life for an unlimited extension. The terms were unclear, the application form kept changing and nobody would explain whether it included the continued existence of dentistry.

I do not find this reassuring. But I am suspicious of the instruction to "make every moment count". I once counted a whole afternoon and enjoyed very little of it.

Jang would permit an ordinary day. Good. An unlimited sequence of extraordinary days sounds exhausting and would require far too many reservations.

You can love the strange privilege of being here without discovering how to be delighted about leaving. You can make a call, notice the light on a wall, or laugh at something that has no lasting importance.

I have not solved the ending. I would simply prefer not to miss the middle while composing my complaint.