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Being Mortal By Sheri Fink

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In Being Mortal, Atul Gawande brings to revelation something we as humans know that will happen but in reality never really want to face: we are mortal and death will not escape us. Throughout the book, Gawande navigates the reader through a series of obstacles and choices faced to make when the ill and old have hit the stage of life when death is near. The New York Times reviewer Sheri Fink writes, “Being Mortal is a valuable contribution to the growing literature on aging, death and dying.” This book definitely helps readers come to terms with the reality of dying. Gawande finds balance between understanding what the elderly go through in the ending stages of their lives and having them face the reality of death, as well as how to spend the last days of life with dignity and on one’s own terms. Everyone is born to eventually die; that is the reality of life. Death is not the enemy; death is the eventual consequence of being born. Knowing how to live a full life despite the amount of time given is the enemy. Gawande explains a hypothesis psychologist Laura Carstensen had: “how we seek to spend our time may depend on how much time we perceive to have” (97). Nobody knows how much time one has until faced with life altering situations. Laura Carstensen had a near death experience, which prompted her to evaluate her life and the elder roommates in her recovery room. By doing so she went on to pursuit a career in psychology eventually coming up with her hypothesis and testing
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