There’s an interesting paradigm I’ve noticed in human behavior. When people are alive it seems there are not enough bad things we can say about them but when they die there’s not enough good we can say.
The same person that may have been bashing someone the day before they die will be saying how close of a friend and meaningful relationship they had with them the day after they die. Much of this comes from selfish motives. We are rarely motivated by what we actually think of the person, more we are motivated by what makes us look good in the present moment.
We like to tear others down while they’re alive because it paints us as superior. We don’t always do this outright. In the right context, maybe. But more often it’s subtle hints and suggestions to make us look better, and if we tear others down on the way, so be it.
After people have died, we once again are so focused on self that we think if we can make others think that we were very close to this person that they’ll think of us and how much we must be hurting. We almost always try to shift the focus to ourselves.
The topic of pride and narcissism is a large one that deserves more time devoted to it, but as I sit here this evening thinking about it, what if we started talking about people who are alive as if they were dead?
What if all of the good things we say about people when we talk about them after they’ve passed we start bringing up in conversation when we talk about them now? What if the next time someone said something dragging someone else down we stepped in and said whatever we would as if they were dead?
There would surely be more lies about the closeness of friendship and potentially even giving false impressions about people’s true character, but what a joyful and uplifting world we would live in.
…One recommendation, however, is not to tell your friend what their eulogy speech would be – it might be…concerning..