“Society tends to slough off the problems of aging, illness, and death, tends to push them off to the side because other things seem more pressing. Making a lot of money is more important. Having fulfilling relationships is more important. Whatever. And the big issues in life — the fact that you're headed for the sufferings and indignities that come with an aging, ill, or dying body — get pushed off, pushed out of the way. "Not yet, not yet, maybe some other time." And of course when that other time does arrive and these things come barging in, they won't accept your "not yet," won't be pushed out anymore. If you haven't prepared yourself for them, you'll really be up the creek, at a total loss.”

"Meditation: The How and the Why" (2003)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Society tends to slough off the problems of aging, illness, and death, tends to push them off to the side because other…" by Thanissaro Bhikkhu?

Thanissaro Bhikkhu8

Theravadin Buddhist Monk and Scholar 1949

Related quotes

“If you learn life’s lessons, you will do well. If not, life will just continue to push you around. People do two things. Some just let life push them around. Others get angry and push back. But they push back against their boss, or their job, or their husband or wife. They do not know it’s life that’s pushing.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki (1947) American finance author , investor

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!

“Remember, 'No one's more important than people'! In other words, friendship is the most important thing--not career or housework, or one's fatigue--and it needs to be tended and nurtured.”

Julia Child My Life in France

Source: My Life in France

“What else should our lives be but a continual series of beginnings, of painful settings out into the unknown, pushing off from the edges of consciousness into the mystery of what we have not yet become.”

David Malouf book An Imaginary Life

Source: An Imaginary Life

“Sabotage means to push back, pull out or break off the fangs of Capitalism.”

Bill Haywood (1869–1928) Labor organizer

Rebel Voices, pp. 65

“Etymologically, patient means sufferer. It is not suffering as such that is most deeply feared but suffering that degrades. That illness can be not an epic of suffering but the occasion of some kind of self-transcendence is affirmed by sentimental literature and, more convincingly, by case histories offered by doctor-writers. Some illnesses seem more apt than others for this kind of meditation.”

Susan Sontag book AIDS and Its Metaphors

Source: AIDS and Its Metaphors, (1989), ch. 4, p. 125, Farrar, Straus and Giroux ISBN 0-312-42013-7 ; later published in combination with Illness As Metaphor. This combined edition is the one referenced here.

“I do want to be careful not to glamorise mental illness when it comes to creativity because more often than not it actually tends to inhibit creativity…”

Esmé Weijun Wang American writer

On avoiding perpetuating stereotypes about mental illness in “Esmé Weijun Wang: ‘I don’t want to glamorise mental illness… it inhibits creativity’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jun/29/esme-weijun-wang-interview-the-collected-schizophrenias in The Guardian (2019 Jun29)

“I’d have been dead a long time ago if not for my friends, one of whom had just jumped off the cliff after me.
I’d have been a lot more appreciative if he hadn’t pushed me first." ~Cassandra Palmer”

Karen Chance American writer

Source: Hunt the Moon