Paula Marantz Cohen argues that college and university curricula fail to move students to think about money, leisure and death – considerations that are "fundamental to leading an examined life." She makes a particularly powerful case for viewing our decisions and priorities regarding death:
[S]ome experiences can only be pursued when young and vigorous, before strength and agility begin to wane. When my husband broke his leg a few years ago, he understood what it would be like to be enfeebled. It made him realize that the time to travel was now rather than later. Students should be encouraged to think about the stages of life—and the logic of pursuing experiences and activities, even if it means financial sacrifice, that they won’t be able to pursue when they’re older.
Death supplies the context for thinking deeply about money and leisure.
I find it strange, whenever I teach a Shakespeare tragedy, to see how many students have never considered the simple fact that they will eventually die. When we read the speech from the end of Act V in Hamlet, commonsensical as it is, it can take them by surprise: "If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all." Thinking about mortality is humbling; it opens us more fully to the richness of life when we are aware of how fleeting our time on earth is. The prospect of death can help us to see more clearly how we want to spend our lives.
The Dish 