truthseeker - you are going through what most of have or as still battling with. Worst bait and switch ever!
Facing mortality after leaving the witnesses
by truthseeker 21 Replies latest jw friends
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dubstepped
I feel the same way. I'm 38 and just left last year. It's a total mindf*ck to go from never having to die to knowing you will. I'm a naturally anxious person with obsessive thoughts at time and it messes with me regardless of what others have said here. I'm trying to focus more on living a life I can be proud of when looking back on my death bed instead of focusing on the big dirt nap. -
Hadriel
I genuinely look at it this way. While fully indoctrinated I couldn't do a think about it. I mean I had no control. Be a decent person, do right by folks and hope that Jah wrote me in the book of life.
What's changed? Nothing really. I'm still the same person. Generally kind, generous etc. I have no control over things I have no control over.
Hence I worry about the time I have and let the chips fall as they may.
Seriously to me I'm in the same boat I've always been in only I don't believe in unicorns now. :)
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FadeToBlack
This is the toughest part for me:
Now, at 60 years old - I have no children with my husband .....I especially feel for him, as his siblings (non JWs) have big extended families of children, grandchildren family friends acquired through a life of 'doing life together' and old age is almost a rich pleasure to his siblings.
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truthseeker
Dub stepped,
I agree I am also that way.
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BluesBrother
It was an absolute thump with reality to stop believing that I was going to live forever in youthful vigour , and realize that life was in fact three quarters over and I had wasted most of it.
Now even more has passed, I see old friends dying and I know that my own is in the foreseeable future....
That's life mate , just got to accept it for what it is.
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Freeandclear
I'm 44. I was a convert at the young age of about 17. I didn't really wake up to the TTATT until about a year ago. It is very hard to let go of "the dream" as I call it. Eternal youth, etc.... Very hard to think about just being gone. I've come to the conclusion that there is one of two realities awaiting us at the end. Either 1. death just as JW's believe. Eternal nonexistence. Or 2. Something else happens. What that something else is is anyone's guess.
All I can do NOW is to live in the moment. Enjoy each day to the fullest. I continue to be a good person. I dont' harm others, I try to be good and fair to everyone even those I don't like. I know that if there is a God at the end I will be able to look him in the eye and say "I did my best" and he will know I'm not lying.
Humans have dealt with this "existential crisis" from the time we became self aware, and through all of it no one has any real answers. We find ourselves in this very real situation where we live and KNOW we will one day die. It's no wonder "religion" was created by the human mind to deal with it. Much easier to believe in some fantasy at the end than to deal with the reality that death is the end for real.
Best of luck to you OP. We're all in the same sinking boat so let's have a party while it's going down!
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Mickey mouse
I understand. I'm the same age and this year is giving me cause for reflection. -
AnneB
Growing old and dying is a heck of a lot better than seeing the whole human race annihilated in front of me and wondering if I'm good enough to live through... -
truthseeker
Mickey mouse
i agree. I'm older than the elders were when I was a kid in the 1980s and 1990s. And the elders are mor or less retired. And so the cycle goes except I broke the cycle and left.
Freeandclear, let's have that party.
I miss the certainty that my hope was based on, and knowing even if I died I could get a resurrection.