Moving From Disillusioned to Delighted
How the dying turn life’s worst news into freeing news and what it teaches about living a happy life
There is no way to beat around the reality that some of the worst news you can receive in life is that you or someone you love is dying. Full stop.
In my work with dying patients, I see a consistent pattern of patients experiencing extreme disillusionment when it finally sinks in that they are dying and that their treatments aren’t going to work. Understanding how some of these individuals move through their disillusionment to live their happiest final moments has a lot to teach us about how to be happy.
What’s perhaps most surprising about this disillusionment is that while yes, it is initially disillusionment with the fact that they are dying, the disillusionment often shifts to how they have been spending their time. They begin to question what makes a life worth living. Unlike many of us, the dying are forced to face the very real question, “How valuable is your time and what should you do with it?”
The disillusionment often has to do with how they were spending their time and what values it pointed to. This is the point at which dying patients report things like regretting that they worked so much or that they saved travel for when they were retired rather than doing it when they had younger, heathier bodies.
For this reason, “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard” makes the top ten list of almost every dying person’s advice roundup. But why? Why do they often become disillusioned with the life they lived up to that point?
Two definitions of disillusion
According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, disillusion has two different definitions that hold the key to understanding how it both breaks the dying down but helps them move towards a freer life after. And you don’t have to be dying to experience this freedom. The noun definition is “the condition of being disenchanted; the condition of being dissatisfied or defeated in expectation or hope.” You are disillusioned that the treatment you hoped would cure you failed. You are disillusioned that all the countless hours you spent climbing to the top of the professional ladder don’t mean anything in the face of death.
But the verb form of disillusion means “to free from illusion.” While a painful step, the reality of realizing that what actually makes us happy are things like meaningful connection to others, and not countless hours or working or hustling, ultimately frees the dying to live life in a freer and happier way.
The key to how to spend your time: What the science says really makes us happy
The Harvard Study of Adult Development, which is the one of the longest-running studies of adults in the U.S. (started in 1938), found in studying over 700 participants and 1,300 of their offspring that the single best predictor of human happiness is the quality of our relationships. That’s it. With brain scans and surveys about physical health, mental health, career, relationships, and exams it all boiled down to meaningful connection to others being the most important factor to being happy. That starts to make it clear why the pandemic made everyone suffer so greatly.
Yet, if you survey how you spend your day-to-day life, you probably quickly realize you aren’t banking your time in the best way to yield happiness. Of course, each of us has to work, take care of kids and homes, etc. We can’t just hang out in coffee shops all day. But we also live in a culture obsessed with constant high volumes of connection and productivity, without ever asking if they are meaningful or necessary connections or products. The system of constant content creation, striving, and hustling is designed to feed the beast but never to make us happy.
There is countless data to prove things like wealth, success, and achievements don’t bring us happiness. And yet, so many of us put an exorbitant amount of time towards gaining those things, often at the expense of personal relationships.
Think of the countless hours you spend working, on social media (LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok), hustling, and even side hustling.
Now, pause and imagine you are just told you have 6 months to live.
The death thought exercise
For many of us, it’s a punch to the gut to evaluate our hours spent in light of the reality of dying. We might immediately become disillusioned with how we are spending our time. But if we push past that initial disillusionment to become free from the illusion that we must be doing all of this (social media, overworking, etc.), we might find a new form of freedom in it.
This is the major difference I see in the dying patients who work their way towards using their diagnosis as a way to help bring meaning to their lives versus remaining despondent until the day they die. Those who find hope or meaning in their final days are the ones who push past the initial disillusionment of dying and ultimately find more meaning in living their lives in a way that is meaningful to them, right now. It’s not to say they don’t face extreme limitations and hopelessness and all the things a dying person inevitably faces. Rather, it’s to say they somehow find meaning despite, and actually often because of this bad news.
It's the same reason middle aged individuals so often experience the traditional “mid-life crisis.” That’s the point in time in which you might become aware that the things you thought you would achieve may not be possible or what you thought would make you happy has failed to do so. At first, it’s disillusioning to experience this level of dissonance. But, if you give it time, it can help you settle into living a happier and more meaningful life.
Questions to ask yourself
So if you find yourself in a state of disillusionment, how do you work towards delight, meaning and joy?
Disillusionment Questions (Work out of it)
o What about your day-to-day life feels meaningless?
o What about it feels like a waste of time (lack of positive outcomes, not feeling good, feeling like a waste of time, not moving the needle)?
o What of these things must you do and what could you let go of?
Delight (Work towards it)
o What about your day-to-day life feels meaningful?
o When do you feel most free?
o When do you feel happiest?
o When do you feel like you are using your time most wisely?
o How can you do more of this?
Sometimes it’s as simple as replacing a one-hour social media scroll at night with cooking or painting. Sometimes it’s setting a clear, lower boundary of how long you will work on building your online presence. Sometimes it’s choosing to spend more time with family or friends. Do a quick assessment this week and trade one crummy thing for one good thing. And then go from there. That’s it.
The first step is admitting that maybe you’ve been “wasting” some of your time, accepting this disillusioning reality, and then moving into a direction of more freedom and joy.