Why do most people fear dying more than almost anything else?
“Because most people fear the unknown (change) more than anything else.”
That’s the whole thing in one sentence. It isn’t death itself that terrifies us — it’s the not-knowing. Human beings can tolerate an enormous amount of pain and struggle if they can predict it. What we can’t tolerate is stepping into a room with no map, no light switch, and no guarantee of what’s on the other side.
Death is the ultimate unknown. And so we build our lives around avoiding the conversation entirely, mistaking silence for safety.
But there’s an older, quieter idea worth sitting with:
Think of death as a “birth” INTO the metaphysical; and of birth as a “death” FROM the metaphysical.
– Michael K. Hirshorne
If that reframe is true, the “unknown” we fear so much isn’t a void. It’s a return.
Why We’re Here in the First Place
If birth is a “death” from the metaphysical — leaving a state of oneness to enter a limited, physical life — what is the soul meant to learn or accomplish during that limited time here?
“Whatever it decided (in the metaphysical) it needs to learn or improve on. It (the soul) knows it can have as many ‘chances’ as it needs if the lesson isn’t learned in the physical lifetime it is ‘born’ into.”
This is a profoundly freeing idea. It means:
- Life isn’t a pass/fail exam. The soul isn’t gambling everything on one attempt.
- You chose this classroom. The lessons of this lifetime weren’t handed to you at random — the soul selected exactly what it needed to work on.
- Falling short isn’t final. If the lesson doesn’t land this time, there’s no cosmic slamming of the door. There’s another chance, another birth, another “death from the metaphysical.”
That single shift — from one shot to as many chances as needed — quietly dissolves a lot of the pressure people carry around performance, perfection, and “running out of time.”
Living ON Purpose
If someone truly believed death was a “birth” into the metaphysical rather than an ending, how would it change the way they actually live?
“I think if they truly internalized that concept, they would lose their fear of death, and ‘live’ with purpose… ON purpose. It’s a beautiful thought, isn’t it?”
It is. And it’s the difference between a life that happens to you and a life you actively author. When the fear of the unknown loosens its grip, people tend to:
- Take the risk they’ve been postponing
- Say the thing they’ve been swallowing
- Love without guarding themselves quite so tightly
- Stop treating urgency and anxiety as the same thing
“Fear of death dissolves immediately, when the concept of death (as a permanent ending) dissolves…”
– Michael K. Hirshorne
Self-actualization, seen this way, isn’t about outrunning death. It’s about living so intentionally — so on purpose — that when the next threshold arrives, it feels less like a loss and more like graduation.
