used to wonder why, when people were so often trying to kill us, we didn’t seek to comfort ourselves by making the afterlife our primary focus. In some ways, that might have been the more humane thing to do. But we never made that choice. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why we’re still here—because we refused to give up on this world or devalue thi

Her body was weak, but her mind was still sharp and her memories vivid. She talked about decades past, times when she was youthful, healthy, newly married, and starting her beloved family. She reminisced about parties and days at the beach with close friends, now long dead. She laughed as she remembered those good times. “Such a difference with my

here’s what I discovered: you can experience the benefits of post-traumatic growth without the trauma, if you are willing to undertake an extreme challenge in your life—such as running a marathon, writing a book, starting a business, becoming a parent, quitting smoking, or making a spiritual journey. Researchers call this post-ecstatic growth.