A Year to Live Annotation

In A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as if it Were Your Last, author Stephen Levine teaches readers how to live the next year of their life fully and completely, as if it were their last. Levine teaches readers the importance of preparing for death, and shares his ideas on how exercises revolving around this concept can deeply enrich a person’s quality of life.

Levine discusses the importance of forgiveness in preparing to end life. Forgiveness does not excuse the behavior we have been hurt by, but acknowledges the behavior and the strife it resulted in and takes care of “finishing unfinished business” (89). Forgiveness is an important tool in any person’s life, and it certainly has been in mine. I am not a particularly forgiving person to people who I feel have wronged me in some way. Although there have been few people in my life who I have been unable to forgive, I feel the inability I have of letting go of my negative feelings and bitterness towards those people is stifling. I have tried to force myself into forgiveness, but I haven’t been successful. The one experience I have in forgiving someone who hurt me was a truly authentic and natural experience. As a teenager, I had a friend who treated me very poorly. After ending my friendship with this person, I didn’t speak to them for over a year and felt a great deal of anger with them. When we did reconnect, I realized my feelings of anger and bitterness had subsided, and I was at peace with what the relationship used to be, was and could be. Although a deep friendship with this person could never again be achieved, I was happy to have let go of the animosity I felt toward my friend, and was able to be acquainted with her on a neutral level. I have never experienced this sort of forgiveness with anyone else—although I have tried to forgive others, my attempts are always superficial and unsuccessful. Although Levine notes that even unsuccessful attempts have the “considerable power of its intention” (89), I have yet to experience any success in my attempts. Possibly I have made movement in my attempts, and am simply unaware of the gradual change. Nonetheless, I feel Levine’s point is an important one. Being unable to forgive someone just hurts the person who feels they have been wronged, but opening your heart to forgiveness can allow the negative emotions to subside and create more room for acceptance and joy.

Levine discusses the importance of letting go of control and being able to experience the lack of comfort in helplessness. Levine writes about how often people die as the result of declining physical health, and notes the importance of being able to withstand the unease of being helpless. Although I think this is an important exercise in practicing vulnerability, I also think it is a very difficult exercise to completely commit to, especially if you have never seen interacted with someone who is physically helpless. For the last seven years of her life, my grandmother was completely dependent on other people. She required twenty four hour care and needed assistance to move from her bed to her wheelchair. She died slow and painfully and was completely helpless. Although I feel that I could perform one of the exercises Levine suggested, such as allowing someone else to feed or dress me, I feel that my experience would be very emotionally charged, having seen such helplessness firsthand. And, since my experience would be so emotionally involved, it may make my exercise as a helpless individual that much richer.

Levine writes about altars and the role they play in celebrating life. Often people imagine altars to be commemorative, but Levine suggests using them in a celebratory way. “Personal altars can become a substantial accompaniment to a life review,” Levine writes. “Photos and mementos provide a mirror for our life and times. An altar that honors the work still to be done as well as that already completed” (102). To me, constructing an altar seems to be very similar to scrapbooking, which is something I enjoy doing. Scrapbooking allows me to preserve important memories and document my life in a creative and celebratory way. When I flip the pages of my scrapbook, I am able to reflect on my life and the memories I have created. I believe that creating an altar and reflecting on it would have a similar effect. Creating an altar could be very helpful to someone who is preparing to, or is simply practicing, dying. Piecing together scraps of existence in celebration of life is a very celebratory and reflective thing to do, and could be used as a tool in meditation or relaxation.

A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as if it Were Your Last was unlike any other book I have ever read. The book was not just about how to practice dying, but was rather a workshop in how to practice dying. One thing that I think benefited me in reading this book was that unlike many other people my own age, I have faced my own mortality. Having had the experience of dealing with my own mortality, I have dealt with some of the issues Levine presented. My own experience with mortality has also led me to a greater spiritual awareness, which I feel Levine called upon in this book. Levine’s book could be greatly beneficial to a person who wanted to get the most out of the remaining time in their life, or a person who wanted to practice dying.

Deep Survival Annotation

In Deep Survival, Laurence Gonzales writes about survival, and strives to answer three questions: Who lives? Who dies? And why? Gonzales artfully weaves science and true life stories of survival together in his book, creating a book based in science, philosophy and true life stories. This book is meaningful to me because of how relevant the content is to me as a cancer survivor; On that level I found a great deal of information in the book that I identified with.

One point Gonzales makes that I find to be very valuable is about being able to build up a “familiarization” with pain. On page 183, he writes, “You have to practice hurting. There is no question about it…You have to practice being hazed. You have to learn to take a bunch of junk and accept it with a sense of humor.” These words are meaningful to me on both a physical and emotional level. Physically, I think about the marathon I am currently training for. My weekend long runs began at six miles, which is a short distance for individuals who compete in endurance competitions. Gradually, they will build up to a maximum distance of twenty miles. Although the distance is what determines how long I will be running, it is really the amount of time I spend running that matters. In running a marathon, you need to be familiar with physical fatigue and pain—no matter how fit a marathoner is, they will be in pain by the time they complete the race. My gradual familiarization with physical hurting is teaching me how to withstand and endure physical discomfort, so on race day I can be strong and ready to run through the pain. On an emotional level, these words make me think about my experience as a cancer patient. Although my experience with cancer was emotionally grueling, I have learned and gained so much as a patient and survivor. Dealing with cancer at eighteen years old taught me many things; one of them being having a sense of humor about uncomfortable circumstances. During my illness, I enjoyed laughing at “Top Ten” lists for cancer patients. Some of my favorites are the “Top Ten Worst Responses If Someone Tells You They Have Cancer” and the “Top Ten Ways to Disturb the Waiting Room.” Although I never used humor as a defense mechanism to prevent myself from dealing with my illness, it was a helpful tool that alleviated some of the stress and pressure I felt.

Gonzales also discusses the essence of the survival instinct in survivors. On page 224 he writes, “Like all true survivors, Callahan was not doing it just for himself. Survivors are always connected to loved ones, friends, society. They survive because they are rescuing the species, not just themselves. It’s another paradox of survival: The individual doesn’t matter. But the survival instinct of the individual must matter if the species is to survive. That’s one reason survivors do it for another.” This passage makes me think about my experience as a cancer survivor. As soon as I completed my cancer treatments, I felt a call to action. I felt like I had been given a second chance--and, I thought I owed it to cancer. I immediately got interested and involved in fundraising and service efforts concerned with cancer. I fundraised and ran a half marathon with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and began volunteering at a camp in Maine for children with chronic or life threatening illnesses and their families during oncology sessions. Professionally, I aspire to work with individuals and families who are dealing with cancer or other life threatening illnesses in a clinical social work capacity. Throughout the past three years, the work I have done surrounding cancer has become a passion of mine, and I know the essence of survival is at the core of what I do.

The last section of the book, detailing steps survivors take to stay out of harm’s way was particularly meaningful to me. None of the steps are concrete rules that one might think they would be--Gonzales doesn’t describe how to start a fire in the wilderness or how to find food if stranded on a tropical island. But, he does describe how to keep your mental and emotional self in the role of “survivor.” Nearly every step listed is something that I feel cancer survivors must do in order to ensure survivorship. There were a couple steps in particular that I identified with. Gonzales writes, “Believe that you will succeed (develop a deep conviction that you’ll live)” (290). To have a positive self fulfilling prophecy is vital to individuals dealing with a life threatening illness--the power of a person who believes they will survive is insurmountable. On page 289, Gonzales writes, “See the beauty (remember: it’s a vision quest).” This step is also very important to survivors--although it is very difficult to escape the intense emotions that accompany tragic circumstances, seeing the silver lining in a negative situation can be incredibly uplifting. Although it was difficult for me to see any positive aspect to my own illness, I did embrace the love and support I received from family and friends. I was especially grateful for my mother and her intuitive response to take on the role as my patient advocate throughout the duration of my illness. From the beginning to the end, from each doctor appointment to treatment session, my mother was by my side the entire way. She asked questions of the doctors I had never thought of and took up in my defense when she thought doctors may not be acting in my best possible interest. I was so grateful for the protection my mother offered to me as her child, I saw that as the most beautiful aspect of my difficult circumstance.

I have conflicted feelings about Deep Survival. I found the first half of the book (which dealt with how accidents happen) difficult to enjoy and read, but the second half (which dealt with survivorship) easier to read and identify with. Although I think this book is appealing to a wide variety of readers, the science that is so deeply woven into the text could make the content difficult to understand for a layperson. Despite this, there are a great deal of lessons and strategies present in this book for how to effectively help people. Overall, I was pleased that I was able to identify several concepts of survival that I was familiar with from my own personal experience.