I’m not dead yet, and I wish people would stop burying me

Changing jobs can feel like attending your own funeral.

Whether you quit, are forced to resign, get terminated, or go through corporate layoffs, the sensation is quite morbid.

Particularly if there’s a time lag between the announcement and your departure. During those last few days or few weeks, fellow employees greet you with a look of fear. They see the devastation in your eyes and speak in hushed tones and guard their comments in your presence.

Hell, some of your soon to be former coworkers won’t even look you in the eye anymore. There’s a distance there. People don’t interact with you the same way. It’s like you’re a ghost, and they don’t understand why you can’t be around forever.

Not surprisingly, patients with terminal diseases often have this experience, albeit thousands of times more powerful.

There’s a devastating editorial written by a man who was dying of aids. He said that when you’re going to die, everyone looks at you as if you have a skull and crossbones over your head. They feel like they have license treat you like you’re already dead. And it’s hard to keep living when people insist on seeing you as dead or dying.

The man wrote:

I’m not dead yet, and I wish people would stop burying me.

Sadly, he dropped into a coma because he didn’t have the strength to fight against people’s constant projections.

Wow, talk about the denial of death. Talk about living half obscurity about our own condition. This man’s editorial went on to give the following advice on behalf of all sufferers of this awful disease.

We are not dead. We are dying, but so are you. And if you were more open to your own frailty, if you were less consumed with overcoming your own insecurity, if your psychological immune system weren’t so good at making you feel that it’s not you who’s dying, it would give many of us a bit of reprieve and you the chance to touch life more intimately and to know more of the beauty of giving and receiving love.

Have you ever attended your own funeral?

It’s a scary and complicated and bizarre experience.

But when it happens to you, and if you’re lucky enough to come out alive on the other side, maybe you’ll walk away with greater compassion for self and other.

Remember, just because someone is closer to the end than you are, doesn’t mean they’ve been evacuated of all value, humanity, and agency.

Don’t treat them like a piece of meat thrown on the floor.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Who in your life is not dead that you’re trying to bury?