Why thinking about death helps you live a better life | Alua Arthur

TED Health

TED

Health & Fitness, Fitness, Shoshana Ungerleider, Medicine, How To Be Healthier, Ted Shoshana, Ted Talks Health

4.2 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 22 August 2023

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As a death doula, or someone who supports dying people and their loved ones, Alua Arthur spends a lot of time thinking about the end of life. In a profound talk that examines our brief, perfectly human time on this planet, she asks us to look at our lives through the lens of our deaths in seeking to answer the question: "What must I do to be at peace with myself so that I may live presently and die gracefully?"

Transcript

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0:00.0	Ted Audio Collective
0:16.5	Hey listeners, it's Dr. Shoshana Ungerliter, your host of Ted Health.
0:21.5	What does it mean to have a good death?
0:25.0	Maybe a perfect sunset, your loved ones around, soothing music.
0:30.0	Well, maybe that's just me.
0:32.0	But why think about death when we're alive and kicking?
0:36.0	In her 2023 TED Talk, lawyer and death doula, Aelua Arthur, humorously and unflinchingly,
0:44.0	takes us on a journey that confront our ultimate fate.
0:48.0	Aelua challenges us to consider death not as a grim finality,
0:52.0	but as a context for living more meaningfully every day.
0:56.0	So let's journey together into the paradox of embracing death to truly live.
1:12.0	Got a business problem? There's a TED Talk for that.
1:15.0	Stay updated on everything business, on TED Business,
1:18.0	a podcast hosted by Columbia Business School Professor Modoupe Akinola.
1:22.0	Every week, she'll introduce you to leaders with unique insights on work,
1:26.0	answering questions like, how do four day work weeks work?
1:30.0	Do will a machine ever take my job?
1:32.0	Get some surprising answers on TED Business, wherever you listen to podcasts.
1:39.0	I want to die at sunset.
1:41.0	I want to watch this guy change and turn orange and pink and purple
1:46.0	as day dies in tonight.
1:49.0	I want to hear the wind fluttering through the leaves
	...

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