What Is a Life Worth Living?
Reflections on the passing of Queen Elizabeth II.
Last week, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II passed away. To be honest, I hadn't paid much attention to this figure before. Therefore, seeing so many people around the world mourn and pay tribute to her took me quite by surprise. That astonishment and curiosity prompted me to spend some time reading about her life through news articles, videos, and summaries of books written about this extraordinary woman of the United Kingdom.
During that brief period of research, although I couldn't learn every fine detail of the Queen's life, I suddenly realized that Queen Elizabeth II had lived a life that I deeply yearn for.
It was a life that:
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Held countless memorable experiences — The life of a monarch was already a ticket to experience things ordinary people could never encounter. That became even more extraordinary as she lived through a century marked by the greatest geopolitical, scientific, technological, and artistic transformations in human history.
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Enjoyed a long life — Not only did she live to the age of 96, but she also enjoyed admirable health, and most notably, mental sharpness maintained until her very last breaths (just a few days prior to her passing, she appointed Ms. Liz Truss as the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom).
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Ended swiftly — This might sound contradictory to the point above, but it truly isn't. A swift departure here means a gentle, clean, and minimally painful death. A serene departure (for both the departed and loved ones around them) compared to lingering passings over decades of illness.
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Left behind a monumental legacy — Her legacies span from material wealth to historic, diplomatic, and symbolic values. Her name will likely be remembered by humanity for many generations to come.
Looking back, that is indeed a life that perhaps many others besides myself dream of. This life is short, lasting only a few decades. Therefore, let us live in such a way that when we close our eyes for the final time, we can smile and say:
I have lived a life well lived!
P.S.: When writing this essay, I vaguely recalled that “_some of the criteria for a life worth living_” mentioned here had been read somewhere before, but I couldn't recall where. Today, two weeks after writing this, I finally remembered that I had read it in an article by Prof. Nguyen Lan Dung.
I would like to leave the link to that article here for anyone curious to read and explore further!
Thank you for reading my article!
Kim,