Embracing Life's Final Chapter

This video is part of the “Life We Should Live” project. The URL for more information about this project is: https://thelifeweshouldlive.com

Think about the last chapter of life. We're talking from the point in which people get a diagnosis of a terminal illness until the end of life. In the western world, this chapter is slightly longer than five years. I've talked about this chapter with many physicians and palliative care experts. What are palliative care experts? Palliative care is about taking care of people's quality of life rather than duration of life. Usually, we associate palliative care with hospice or the last few days of life. But the reality is that most of our life is palliative care. We go out with friends, get a glass of beer, go for a walk, read a book, and watch a movie. Most of life is about quality of life. That's what we're occupied with most of the time.

But what happens is that we worry about quality of life. At some point, we get the bad news about the terminal illness diagnosis, and at that point, we usually stop worrying about quality of life and start being a full-time patient, just worrying about being a patient. So, quality of life, all the time, palliative care, we stop, become a patient, don't worry about quality of life, just duration of life. And then, in the last few weeks, some people remember and start worrying about quality of life again. But the reality is that quality of life should be a lifelong thing. We should never stop it. People should never accept that their main role in life is to be a patient. Our main role in life is to be a human being with objectives, goals, aspirations, social relationships, fun, and all kinds of things like that. And when people get a terminal illness diagnosis, they should also be a patient, but it shouldn't define them.

Anyway, I go to these palliative care experts and say, imagine that you were not helping people in the last few weeks of their life. You were there from the moment they got a terminal illness diagnosis until the end of life. They were deposited in your care. They were doing whatever else they were doing, and you were there in addition to whatever they were doing, and you were there to help them. You were there to help them with all aspects of their lives. And I say, imagine that happened. Somebody gets diagnosed, they come to your care, and you have an infinite amount of time to help them. You talk to them, you help them. Symptoms, wills, quality of life, fixing relationships, we do all of these things. They live for slightly longer than five years, like the average. Then they pass away.

And then I say, imagine now that they passed away. And ten minutes later, you get to wake them up. You wake them up and say, "Hey, you get a choice. You get to live one of your chapters of life again. Which chapter do you want to live again?" And what I asked is, palliative care expert, what percentage of people would pick that last chapter of life? What percentage of people would pick that terrible chapter?
That is the end of life. But with the assistance of palliative care experts, what do you think is the answer? What percentage would pick that chapter? The palliative care experts say that most of the patients, they say between 80 and 90%, would pick that chapter. Why? Because it turns out that the point in which people get a terminal illness diagnosis has potential. Not usually, but it has the potential to become a positive, pivotal point in people's lives.

People can basically examine their life and say, here are all the things I don't like. Here are all the things I want to change. Here's the things I need to fix. By the way, a lot of them are social, a loved brother that we stopped talking to, a kid that we got disconnected from, and so on. So the point is that this last chapter of life has the potential. It's not easy, it's not simple, it's probably not cheap, but it has the potential to be good.

First of all, from being bad. It has good. And it also has the potential to be the best chapter of our lives. And this is, I find, incredibly inspiring. Yes, the real end of life and death is sad. But if this last chapter can be so good, that I think is very promising, and that's what we're going to try and figure out.
My website:
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