Re: whats is of value to you things or your family.
Hi Firefox,
Sorry to hear of your pain. Often there are greatly tortured circumstances that seem to twist the knife in the passing of a loved one or parent. I am 47, and all of my close buddies have lost their fathers to death in the last few years. Six weeks notice to a brain tumour, suddened failing of an inoperable heart embolism, another to a operation only to suddenly collapse and die taking a shower in hospital the next day. My father had no history of ill health, suddenly collapsed in my arms with a heart attack. I brought him home hospital a month later with huge relief to all the family, only he collapsed the first night at home. Only then did the doctors reveal his heart was too badly damaged, giving him 7 days; they were right. Huge pain, believing there was a recovery, only to have life snatched away. Holding a parents hand as they are dying, is an indescribable pain. I visited the hospital daily, but was 30 minutes arriving after he had passed. Used to be the first thing entering my mind upon waking each morning. None of my friends seem as tortured by parental death. None were living at home, as carers for their elderly parets as I was, they had jobs to loose themselves in. Some are just so focused on themselves, on their career, they become not very caring or empathic towards the suffering of others. And, they have no time either, enslaved to careers and employers.
I have the added grief of coping with two sets of parents; natural and adopted........ My birth mother had to turn off her husbands life support, 3 weeks after he broke his neck when his horse fell on him. He could only blink to communicate, and at 62 having been retired for 7 years, did not wish to live on totally paralysed & on a respirator. He rescued my natural mothers life 30 years earlier, from poor conduct & behaviour, and she relied on him for everything, though she does not admit it to any of it.
I think one needs to be careful the pain of life does not cumulatively build and cause oneself a sudden unexpected health crises. I thought I was being careful with my health, until an illness suddenly overtook me. After two years illness and reflection, I now see in trying to get ahead and be "supposedly" successful in life, the stress it put me under for so many years, resulted in my illness.
We grow up and live to aspire in a consumerist society, to 'values' that praise having material goods to define a sucessful life. During our formal education, there will have been no mention of the "Hedonic Set Point". It is very difficult to explain to a lottery winner, that if they win $40M, they will have only three to twelve months of extra happiness, before returning to their pre-lottery level of happiness. Apparently, expectations rise in accord, and they will need to bring to bear the full resources of their lottery win, to achieve the same level of happiness and satisfaction in life, to release the exact same level of endorphins that their brain would have released to them prior to their lottery win. Hence, one reverts to a hedonic set point.
Gee