How Would You Change?

     How would your behavior and your relationships change if you had only a month left to live? People get hit with such earth-shaking news daily in physicians' offices. What happens to their now very short lives?

     Some spiral down into their worst selves - angry, bitter, anxious, etc.
     But a decent proportion rapidly evolve into their best - loving, caring, considerate, etc. They drop all their self-centeredness, and open up to everyone and everything (become allocentric & ecocentric) - in other words, they become wise AND, AS A RESULT enjoy the best quality of life they've ever experienced (post-traumatic growth). These folks typically report that their terminal diagnosis was "the best thing that ever happened" to them!

     Meanwhile, most of us behave as if we were going to live forever ie selfishly, foolishly, mindlessly. Is this rational - even from a purely selfish, quality of life perspective?