We are all facing the inevitable

This is a very heavy topic but all of us have to face it: the inevitable death for everyone. While it is very cruel to say it but it’s a harsh reality that we are all marching towards death since the very second when we were born. This is an inevitable journal all of us are taking. No exception! So why I’m talking about this topic today? Well, you may recall I was asking for help a while ago for my medical school classmate who was fighting for her late stage advanced cancer. I’d like to sincerely thank everyone who has helped either monetarily or even just morally. It means a lot to someone who is dying and certainly to my classmate! Unfortunately she lost her battle and passed away a week ago. A sad moment for me for sure! That’s why I’d like to take this opportunity to talk about this grievous topic and share some of my thoughts related to it.

How should we think about death? Well, it is a scary question not many people even want to think about it, right? But is there a way to alleviate the fear? It is possible if you’d like to open your mind a bit. One way to do so is a popular approach to turn yourself into a religion believer. Nothing wrong with it but not necessarily suitable for many people. How about to rely on some more scientific ground to change our view on death? Ever heard about Dr. Brian Weiss, M.D., a famous psychotherapy specialist? Over 10 years ago, my wife and I found his book by chance, entitled “Many lives, many masters”, which has totally changed our view on death. Via his medical practices, he has demonstrated with quite convincing evidence that there should be life after death, or in other words, our soul is immortal and will continue after our body death. We are by no means religious but after reading this book as well as all his books we could find, our mindset has totally changed. Happily we are the firm believer of the life after death based on quite extensive scientifically accumulated evidence! Why is this important for us? Well, if we can continue to live after death, why should we be so scared about the death? Of course, I still wish I could live as long as possible but I’m not afraid of death as well if it is coming. This kind of psychologic change is helping us tremendously in facing death topics which are inevitably coming up more and more in our age.  Regardless if you can believe it not, I strongly recommend to read this book as it has some eye-opening stories. I haven’t really read any books in full in the past 2 decades but this and all his other books are the only exception. As soon as I started, I could not stop. Here is the brief introduction about the book:

As a traditional psychotherapist, Dr. Brian Weiss was astonished and skeptical when one of his patients began recalling past-life traumas that seemed to hold the key to her recurring nightmares and anxiety attacks.

His skepticism was eroded, however, when she began to channel messages from “the space between lives,” which contained remarkable revelations about Dr. Weiss’s family and his dead son.

Using past-life therapy, he was able to cure the patient and embark on a new, more meaningful phase of his own career.

And you may find the book in your local library or easily via Amazon.

Are we well prepared for the life before death? When we are facing life-threatening situation, it will be totally messy all around. The last thing I want to ask myself at that moment is how I can handle the ending financially. Obviously my classmate did not prepare herself well and was in a desperate situation asking for help. I hope all of us can be prepared much better but how many of us can comfortably say we are? I don’t think it is a high proportion among folks out there who can say that! That’s why I have been talking all these years that it is important to financially prepare yourself well for retirement which includes the inevitable end stage of our life.  It will be way too late to think about this when the moment comes, and this moment can come at any time in life. One of my classmates died in 30s due to heart attack! This is a rather personal topic and there is no one-size-fit-all approach. But at least from the high conceptual level, I think two critical steps we need to take: first to honestly assess for yourself how much money you will need for your retirement. There is no standard methodology to do so, but you may check this one to get an idea:  Merrill Edge's Retirement Calculator.  The second step is to set up a passive income stream, ideally multiple streams of PASSIVE incomes. In other words, you want to have sufficient incomes coming in automatically without you doing anything during your retirement. Again there is no standard way to do so but I personally think the easiest thing for everyone to do is to invest in quality dividend growth stocks for long term with dividend reinvestment. As I have said all years along, this is really an effortless approach but very powerful that can build up your wealth very effectively to generate massive passive income when you need it. All you need is your patience after gradually setting it up! And the earlier the better!! In addition, I’m a big fan of appropriately setting up a cash value life insurance that is NOT stock market dependent. It is just like a high yield saving account with powerful tax benefits and can also be used for long term care as well as critical illness as needed. With these two set up, I really don’t think I need to worry at all about our retirement life, including the financial need during the most stressful period when facing life-threatening incidents!

Considering this is inevitable trend for death, which is actually trending higher due to the fast aging population, logically death related businesses are needed regardless of the economic situation. Actually adding some “death stocks” for your long term portfolio is not a bad idea at all, especially those with good dividends. You can find an introduction on this idea here although this paper has been a few years old and therefore the 4 stocks (CSV, STEI, STON, SCI) mentioned are not necessarily cheap anymore. But at least keep this in mind and add them when they are on sales! After all, we are talking about an inevitable trend that nothing can disrupt it. Even Amazon cannot undo it!!    

Before I’m closing, my final advice: enjoy our current life as much as possible! Life is too short with full of challenges and difficulties but there is nothing more important than being still alive and enjoying the time with your loved ones. In this Father’s Day, send your thanks to your dad for bringing our life to this world and thanks your kids (if you have) for continuing your life more meaningfully. I’m happy to believe that one way or the other our life will continue into eternity!! This is where I’m finding my mental peace in this risky and uneasy world and hope you can as well.

Feel free to share my blogs with your friends!