Living Fully Means Accepting Suffering
Last week I got a reading project and it turned out great. Since I’m never finished or even read half of some books but this one piqued my curiosity with how Paul’s written this book; is just like I reading on his diary. I read some review of this book on internet and majority of them recommend this book to others. The book that Paul Kalanithi wrote is When Breath Becomes Air. This book written by Paul’s while he was battling from his medical condition.
Have you ever wondered what is our purpose in this life? Are we ready to face the death? what makes live worth living? Each of us must be have a different answer based on what perspective we see our life. In this book you can see it through Paul’s perspective. Life and death become the main theme in this book. You can’t separate these two main themes even if they are antonyms. In this book, death comes in many forms, started from when Paul’s attending his med school and meet cadaver in the anatomy class, secondly his patients, and lastly his-himself. How he deals with life and death as a doctor — neurosurgeon in the first chapter and starting to deals with his death in the second chapter. What makes live worth living is a great line to describe how Paul’s as a human deals with it. I wrote it as a human because despite of his professions as a neurosurgeon nor his condition as a patient he is a human like all of us. A soul who is thirst for knowledge and had all his life planed out. When I read deeper, I noticed that since the very beginning Paul’s seek for the meaning of life started when he majored in philosophy, biology, and neurosurgeon.
How he deals with his health condition and still trying to fulfill his life plan such as becomes a father and a writer besides he still be a surgeon as he really loves that job really hit me. When Lucy-Paul’s wife ask if he thought having good bye to a child will make dying is more painful, and his answer is wouldn’t it be great if it did. Based on Paul’s answer, I can say that living fully is when we live our life with all the responsibilities and struggle in it but we keep on going and not giving up but still trying to fulfil our life plan. It means we already living fully. It doesn’t need to be a fancy life nor a successful life, living fully is how you embrace every moment of life, of which suffering, pain, loss, and other things. It’s not that the suffering need pity, they need to be validated. To know and feel that their experience is real and that they are still worthy to acceptance. Pain is not really a bad thing in life yet everyone avoids to feel it frequently but pain is a great educator for the soul. It stiffens our character. Without pain we act as if everything must give way to our own wishes and conveniences. I love how Paul know himself very well, he knows things that he thinks are important, and what accomplishments that he wants for himself and his family.
“You can’t reach perfection, but you can believe in asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving” (p.115)
Well, everyone has their own path in dealing with life but you can choose how you want to make your life worth living. You only live once, but if you can live fully one is enough. What makes life worth living? What is our purpose in this life? Those questions are worth to ponder. I would recommend this book to everyone, especially people who have a vacuous life, the one who find hard to living fully and the one who searching for the meaning of life. I bet they will be a positive changes from how you see life after you read this book!
