If you are not a beleiver how do you cope with the simple cruel reality of time passing and the loss of what is precious to you?

[GoreRenewed]

I am feeling very very overwrought tonight. I have a bad cold as my excuse but there are so many things that have happened recently that have made me think.

I'm menopausal. No more babies even if I don't want any more.
My parents are very elderly and I nearly lost my dad last year (and he's till very frail).
My DD has started at secondary school and is changing all the time.
Dad gave me a diary that my granny kept when she was about 10yrs old - 100 yrs ago. And it's so familiar and so very different.
My DB was 50 last year.

I am so aware of the brevity of life and how fragile individual human beings are. Time is a shit really.

How do you deal with this? If you don't beleive that is an overarching plan and a loving God to make it all OK?

I just think that this is life. We are born , time passes, we live and then we die.
There is nothing else. Bad things happen and life is unjust and unfair to so many.
I think believing in God would actually make it worse. Why would he let shit things happen to good people if he could prevent them?

So in order to answer your point, there is no comfort or solace in the thought of an after life to a non believer like me.
I just have to get on with it. This is the only life I will have, and I just have to hope that I am not one of the truly unlucky ones.

I do like the fact that I will just become part of the carbon cycle when I die though. I'd love to think I could end up being part of a tree

I can cope with my death. But it's the people I've loved that bother me. So ephemeral.

I think it helps to focus on the positives of a situation, sometimes.

I have noticed that in the last 5 years or so I have really felt that the passage of time is speeding up. I will be 32 this year.

I don't particularly believe that belief in an afterlife is important, it is important to live our lives as best we can, as we are here on earth, right now. Just as what tiredlady has said.
I don't believe that god has a plan for us, I actually think we are following our own plan. This makes me 'get on with things'.

Bad things that happen to me - later on, perhaps years later I can reflect and realise what I have learnt from the situation. I can derive comfort from knowing that I am a stronger person (sometimes) just from having experienced certain things. This can allow me to support or assist others who find themselves in the same situation.

Everything is changing all the time, change seems the only constant.

OP I know you said you don't believe, but anything is worth a try to make you feel a bit better? I asked the angels to slow my perception of time down. Yes, I know how crazy this sounds. It has worked for me.

I lost my father after a very short sharp battle with cancer and my son was born only one week before. There was no time for anything. Sinking into bereavement on top of other very painful circumstances made me miss out on a lot of good experiences. I had to do something to help myself, I asked the angels for help.

Epheremal we may be, but all the more reason to live for the moment.

So sorry to hear about your father indigo

I am actually a very positive person. I am conscious of how wonderful life is and how lucky I am to actually be here, healthy and safe.

I want to beleive but my head won't let me.

Would it be worth you exploring some meditative techniques? No religious belief is necessary, but the process can really help you to feel fully engaged in, and accepting of, the 'here and now' and your simple physical presence in the world.

Just a thought - I do hope you find the help you are looking for.

MrsC - thankyou.

I once did a little meditation when I did yoga, but was never much good. But I think it would be an excellent idea. I live next door to Glasto so I'm sure i can find a teacher or 20

I think not believing in a god or an afterlife can make you get more out of this life. I have no belief in god. You get one shot at life and you take from it what you can. Accept that shit happens, often to the nicest people, and don't waste time agonising about why it happened. It just did. I lost dad and DH in the space of 10 months and that was really tough. Perhaps a faith would have given some comfort as the thought that I will never see them again, in any shape or form, can be hard to accept.

However, while I grieve deeply for them both, I am still determined to get the most out of life for myself and my DSs. We cram so much into our time. My house is never the most spotless because I'd rather take the kids to the park or go out for the day than spend hours cleaning. People are very important to me and I spend a lot of time with friends and value them deeply.

The only immortality you have is the children you leave behind and the memories of you that other people have. If I can leave happy, well-adjusted children and good memories, then I'll have had a good life.

Thanks Gore, I think I was trying to say what Mummydoit said, I think she put it beautifully. I don't think you are not positive, it's just hard sometimes to deal with everything that life throws at us. I'm not always positive (even though I like to think I am)
Good Luck with the meditation, I can recommend Reiki as a means to relaxing and letting your mind go :)

MummyDoIt that is inspirational it really is.

mummydoit - I see what you mean.

"The only immortality you have is the children you leave behind and the memories of you that other people have"

Yes I agree. But I have been thinking about that very thing recently. My granny (mum's mum) was a huge part of my life when I was small. She told me so many amazing things - stories from a different world they seemed - and since she died in the early 80s mum has told me more. But the version of those stories changes depending on whether mum or my aunt is telling them . And my own memories are fading. Mum and I have told my children the odd story about her and they've seen some photos but much much less than I was told and experienced. When my mum dies those memories will reduce. When I die even more so. When my children have children no-one will tell them about her. And in the grand scheme that doesn't matter, but sometimes it scares me that someone so loved and loving, so vital, and with such rich experiences can fade away to nothing, not even a memory.

Do you see what I mean.

I want to grasp everything and hold it tight but it can't be done.

ANother one here who believes in living life while you have it, and leaving happy memories behind you. We are all stardust and will remain so (ie we are all made up of atoms endlessly reformed into different things but all of which came from the Big Bang). What I can't understand is how people can believe in some Great PUmpkin with a master plan and take comfort from the fact that the Great Pumpkin is quite happily to kill them off in a variety of arbitrary and capricious ways.

" we are all made up of atoms endlessly reformed into different things but all of which came from the Big Bang!

Now you see I find that comforting in a strange way. A form or reincarnation but with no memory. Nirvana of a sort.

Yes, we are all made of stardust! And our stardust will reform as something else. We don't disappear, merely change form. And we must think how lucky we are just to exist, to experience things through our senses etc. I think the idea of eternity with no physical body, and the sure knowledge that many of the people we loved and people who were good and interesting and funny and clever but who happened not to believe in God are suffering for ETERNITY (Christian belief re heaven) while stuck with a lot of happy-clappy types is no heaven for me.

Like that Moby song 'we are all made of stars'..

I think part of growing older is accepting decay and loss.

I get comfort from the fact that I usually do my best for my family and friends, and the environment too. That one day my grandchildren may read a funny old diary or look at a tree that was planted in 1994 or something..

I love looking at my parents' and grandparents' old love letters, old diaries, photos etc. But I'd get too weepy to do it at the moment!

Years ago I had a sort of waking dream of somewhere that I thought was eternity - we were listening to some sort of trance type dance music. It was a vast plain with long evening shadows over it. Beautiful and peaceful but immeasurably sad because there I wouldn't be me. And I wouldn't be with or know the people I had loved on earth.

Read Ekhart Tolle books. You need to learn to live in the present; and meditation helps you do that - it's practice at living mindfully.

I have chosen to accept the ephemerality, and it's quite liberating. I don't care anymore that no one will remember me or my children or my passions in however many years' time; hopefully our descendants will be busy making ephemeral memories of their own, enjoying the present and taking pleasure and wonder from what is all around them.

We're just momentary specks on the skin of the world. As MDI has so eloquently said, "If I can leave happy, well-adjusted children and good memories, then I'll have had a good life."

Erm, Christians do not tend to believe that those who "happen not to believe in God" will be suffering for eternity.

If people are ephemeral dust, and it really doesn't matter what we do, why does being good, leaving good memories, being kind, matter at all? If there is no meaning in the universe or in the chemical tricks of our brain, all our "happiness" and "good" stuff is a delusion. It doesn't actually mean anything - nothing and no-one does, if we are just random stardust. Certainly none of us need care about a random person going without food or clean water on the other side of the globe.

DandyDan, that's what the Bible says! said. "And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life" (Matt. 25:46)" (cribbed from the net, obviously as am not an obsessive Bible scholar) and Jesus said the only way to heaven was by believing in him being the son of God.
DandyDan, you may need the fear of hell to force you into being a decent person, but some of us don't. Besides, evolution has hard-wired empathy into humanity. People without it are actually mentally ill.

Dandydan, I am stone cold sure that if I spend my days torturing and murdering, I would end my life into dust, as did Mother Theresa. And that would be the end of me.

But people behave well because we are living now. This isn't a preliminary test for the great heavenly showdown, this is all we have, it's our one shot, and you won't be happy if you treat people badly because humans are a social animal and we need to have people love us.

I don't need the threat of eternal damnation to not mug old ladies. I just refrain from mugging old ladies, it's quite easy. I find that what most religious people call 'God' is their conscience.

I think it rather sad that any sane rational adult human being would need to be coerced into behaving decently by the threat of an eternal future in a burning hell.

Yes, study after study shows that being nice to others pays huge dividends in our own personal happiness. Altruism gives people a buzz, and makes them enjoy life more. It's evolution, innit?

I imagine Jesus thoroughly enjoyed being nice to people, for example, and of having his friends around him. He had a short life, but a lively, interesting and enjoyable one, I would say.

Gore, I was going to suggest if you didn't like meditation, yoga is fab.

Give it a try again? It's you time, it's mindfulness and so relaxing.

Also, I like that some teachers are very spiritual and very wise.

I want to believe in UFO's like Moulder from X-files. Maybe I do {grin]

People mostly behave well to others because doing so is actually quite rewarding - if you're nice to people they are more likely to be nice to you. People who are very selfish or use force or manipulation to get their own way are generally not all that happy; they worry about getting caught out and shamed, or encountering someone bigger, stronger and more forceful who will hurt them and take what they hold dear.