I’m Not Afraid of Death. I’m Afraid of People Seeing the Inspirational Quotes I Saved on My Phone

Many people fear death, but to me there are much scarier things. No one will live forever and dying is evitable, but my roommate finding the quote “The most wasted of days is one without laughter” is a bone-chilling possibility that keeps me up at night.

 

I would truly rather die in a gruesome shark attack than have people see the inspirational quotes I have saved on my phone. I could build a new life as a ghost; I cannot build a new life once people see I downloaded “rich bitch energy only” off Pinterest.

 

People often ruminate over how and when they will die, asking themselves things like,  “Will I die peacefully in my sleep or fabulously in a Swiss skiing accident?” or “Will I fall in the shower or die in a plane crash?” None of these possibilities concern me because I know I will die. What I don’t know is if anyone will find out I screenshotted “She wasn’t looking for a knight, she was looking for a sword” on my iPhone camera roll.

 

You can’t avoid death – you can avoid an immediate member of your family discovering you have “Stop trying to make everyone happy. You’re not chocolate” in your Notes app. Personally, I would rather die from any Medieval torture method if it meant I could take my iCloud history with me. Dying young would give me an artsy edge, revealing that I took a screenshot of “That dream was planted in your heart for a reason” would not. 

 

If I die, I can come back from that. I mean not literally, who am I, Jesus? But my reputation would recover. People would feel bad for me and post on Instagram about how my smile lit up a room, but I certainly would never garner sympathy at the revelation that the lock background on my phone was “Be who you needed when you were younger.” 

 

 

Who would empathize with someone like that?

 

I could simply never bounce back from such a monumental fall from grace. I would rather be cremated than outed as someone whose favorite phrase is “Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible.’” People finding that out is scarier to me than never seeing my 40th birthday. I’d rather be cool and dead than alive and corny.