Death: be not afraid

A better idea than annual resolutions

No great murder mystery would be complete without the postmortem on the victim. The coroner pronounces cause and time of death, and then the detectives go to work.

Instead, here’s a script for a real life movie. It’s called a pre-mortem.

The idea is to get honest about your life, and avoid wishful thinking as much as possible. Every January, I have my annual argument with myself about the value of New Year’s resolutions, and this year I came across an idea that helped me shift my point of view.

In management and business, the premortem is the brainchild of the cognitive psychologist Gary Klein. His idea is to look at a project and imagine how things could go wrong, “so the project could be improved rather than autopsied.” It further assumes failure of the project, and it rigorously works backward to imagine everything that could go wrong. When it works, it is said to defeat groupthink, planning fallacies, or just plain wishful thinking.

Ron Saich is a very successful, very wealthy businessman who makes the premortem his favorite annual ritual. He asks himself, “What can I do in the next three to five years that I will respect looking back from my deathbed?” Rather than wishful resolutions, he does a premortem on himself.

“I imagine my body old and fragile, my breathing shallow, my life energy almost extinguished,” he writes in his book Know What Matters. “I try to evoke the feelings I want to have in that moment — a sense of peace, completion and, most importantly, self-respect. Then I ask myself: What am I going to do now to ensure that when I reach that ultimate destination, I’ve done what I need to do?”

That really resonates with me. I haven’t been as organized or disciplined as Saich, but in retirement, and especially after the death of my wife Jane, I have tried to hold myself to a conscious use of my time and energy. It’s a gift to be able to make those choices. It’s also hard work.

During my working years, I confess my calling could (and often more than I admitted) turn into a grind or a job. As such the work had first call on my energy—and sometimes, perilously, my soul. Thank God we are given more than a few chances to see what we have become. Repent, in Biblical terms, means think again.

So if you’ve tried resolutions, diets, meditation practices, sobriety, quitting, going back to school, changing careers, and nothing much has in fact changed, consider the premortem.

And don’t wait for January 1. Start anytime. Like now.

In my ministry, I tried to remember to use any opening in pastoral care or even ordinary socializing to ask, “By the way, do you have a will?” Only 32% of Americans have one, and if you’ve ever been left to clean up after a relative without one, you know the toll that denial takes on everyone.

Don’t be afraid to go beyond the will. Done well, the premortem can be tool to cut through the denial of death and the magical thinking.

Saich’s 2012 premortem begins, “I have 1,500 to 7,500 days left.” Next, he filled several pages with bullet points concerning his relationships, his body, his work, his family, his friends and God.

As he says, the premortem is really about living with intention.

Years ago, I knew a brilliant lawyer who retired from a large firm, hung out a shingle as a sole practitioner, and drafted wills and trusts for a wide circle of friends and referrals.

He was widely admired. He died without a will.

What are you afraid of? What are you waiting for?