The 50th Law (with 50 Cent)

Understand: We tend to read stories like Flannery O’Connor’s
with some distance. We can’t help but feel some relief that we find
ourselves in a much more comfortable position. But we make a grave
mistake in doing so. Her fate is our fate—we are all in the process of
dying, all facing the same uncertainties. In fact, by having her
mortality so present and palpable, she had an advantage over us—she
was compelled to confront death and make use of her awareness of it.
We, on the other hand, are able to dance around the thought, to
envision endless vistas of time ahead of us and dabble our way through
life. And then, when reality hits us, when we perhaps receive our own
bullet in the side in the form of an unexpected crisis in our career, or a
painful breakup in a relationship, or the death of someone close, or
even our own life-threatening illness—we are not usually prepared to
handle it.
Our avoidance of the thought of death has established our pattern
for handling other unpleasant realities and adversity. We easily
become hysterical and lose our balance, blaming others for our fate,
feeling angry and sorry for ourselves, or we opt for distractions and

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quick ways to dull the pain. This becomes a habit we cannot shake, and
we tend to feel the generalized anxiety and emptiness that come from
all this avoidance.
Before this becomes a lifelong pattern, we must shake ourselves out
of this dreamlike state in a real and lasting way. We must come to look
at our own mortality without flinching, and without fooling ourselves
with some fleeting, abstract meditation on death. We must focus hard
on the uncertainty that death represents—it could come tomorrow, as
could other adversity or separation. We must stop postponing our
awareness. We need to stop feeling superior and special, seeing that
death is a fate shared by us all and something that should bind us in a
deeply empathetic way. We are all a part of the brotherhood and
sisterhood of death.
In doing so, we set a much different course for our lives. Making
death a familiar presence, we understand how short life is and what
really should matter to us. We feel a sense of urgency and deeper
commitment to our work and relationships. When we face a crisis,
separation, or illness, we do not feel so terrified and overwhelmed. We
don’t feel the need to go into avoidance mode. We can accept that life
involves pain and suffering, and we use such moments to strengthen
ourselves and to learn. And as with Flannery, the awareness of our
mortality cleanses us of silly illusions and intensifies every aspect of
our experience.
When I look back at the past and think of all the time I squandered in error
and idleness, lacking the knowledge needed to live, when I think of how
often I sinned against my heart and my soul, then my heart bleeds. Life is a
gift, life is happiness, every minute could have been an eternity of
happiness! If youth only knew! Now my life will change; now I will be
reborn. Dear brother, I swear that I shall not lose hope. I will keep my soul
pure and my heart open. I will be reborn for the better.
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky