but life is more difficult than death
Page 21 but life is more difficult than death: instead of passive surrender, it takes attention and management. It can also be more painful.
— from The Landing (Death) · How to Live by Sarah Bakewell
In the book
People at the end almost always look back with regret at hours foolishly wasted, wondering why they did not spend more of them with the people they loved and on the work that was theirs to do. Part of why we look away is that living is, strangely, harder than dying — dying is a single passive surrender, while living demands constant attention and management, and can hurt far more. And there is a particular emptiness that ambushes the people who get everything they chase: it is often only after a person has been handed all they thought they wanted that they discover all of it might never be enough to make a life feel like it mattered. — The Landing (Death)