I Will Live My Life Till My Life Runs Out

[DISCLAIMER]

*The Life of Chuck spoilers contained herein.

Photo credit, property of Neon, fair use

I recently watched The Life of Chuck (2025) which is a fantasy drama film written and directed by Mike Flanagan, based on the novella of the same name by Stephen King. I thoroughly enjoyed the flick, as I consider it to be an existential film worth briefly highlighting.

This is a narrative-driven story depicting character “Chuck” from child- to adulthood as he experiences loss, learns about love, and contemplates the multitudes contained in everyone, à la Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”. At times in the film, I laughed. I also thought deeply.

Regarding the latter, when Chuck interfaces with a supernatural force that reveals the manner in which Chuck will eventually die, the character is given the gift of foresight. Unfortunately, he doesn’t know the exact hour or even the age at which he will one day expire.

The audience is left to recall what Chuck’s grandad once told him when the main character was a boy, “It’s the waiting, Chuck, that’s the hard part.” Waiting in life until the impermanence of one’s own existence transforms into death provides plenty of content for deep thought.

It also serves as a time during which, and content about which, people self-disturb with irrational beliefs. Although I wasn’t bestowed with the benefaction of farsightedness regarding when I would die, my dad made sure to repeatedly remind me that I would inescapably die.

Apparently, not everyone had parents or caregivers that imparted similar wisdom. Having begun life coaching in seventh grade and become a psychotherapist in 2011, I’ve continuously worked with people who’ve upset themselves with unaccommodating beliefs about death and dying.

Since having learned about Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), I’ve used unconditional life-acceptance (ULA) to address this very issue. Perhaps it’s somewhat of a misnomer to suggest that I provide psychoeducational lessons about “life-acceptance.”

Unconditional death-acceptance is often more like it. As I succinctly stated in a blogpost entitled You’re Gonna Die Someday, “Every single person you’ve ever known, currently know, and ever will know—yes, this includes people you don’t even know—will eventually die.”

While most of us don’t yet know the manner by which we’ll cease to exist in our current form, benefitting from the gift of foresight afforded to Chuck, many people rigidly place conditions upon life and death. These self-disturbing beliefs can be illustrated by use of a syllogism:

Form (hypothetical) –

If p, then q; if q, then r; therefore, if p, then r.

Example –

If I’m going to accept the fact that I’ll one day die, then I want life and death to go according to my plan.

If I want life and death to go according to my plan, then I should know when, where, and how I’ll die.

Therefore, if I’m going to accept the fact that I’ll one day die, then I should know when, where, and how I’ll die.

This inflexible condition isn’t rational. Instead of self-disturbing in such a manner, I invite people to practice unconditional life- and death-acceptance in a similar manner as Chuck. At the end of the film, Chuck’s death is revealed to him as the following dialogue unfolds:

Narrator: [As Chuck stands in a room] “It’s the waiting,” he [Chuck’s grandfather] said, “That’s the hard part.” Now, Chuck’s own waiting would begin. How long would that wait be? Exactly how old was the man in the hospital bed? There was a final bip from the unseen [vitals] monitor, and then that was gone, too.

The man did not fade, as ghostly apparitions did in the movies. He was just gone. Insisting he had never been there in the first place—

Chuck: He wasn’t—

Narrator: —Chuck thinks—

Chuck: —and I will insist he wasn’t, and I will live my life till my life runs out. I am wonderful, I deserve to be wonderful, and I contain multitudes. [Chuck quietly exits the room]

With my approach to REBT, even if one isn’t wonderful and a case cannot be made in support of how much one may “deserve to be wonderful,” unconditional self-acceptance may be used along with ULA in order for one to achieve eudaimonia (a well-lived life). Each day I’m alive is proof.

Would you like to know more about how to let go of inflexible conditions placed on life and death so that you can live until your life runs out, and do so without unnecessary self-disturbance? If so, then I look forward to hearing from you. After all, eudaimonia awaits!

If you’re looking for a provider who tries to work to help understand how thinking impacts physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral elements of your life—helping you to sharpen your critical thinking skills, I invite you to reach out today by using the contact widget on my website.

As a psychotherapist, I’m pleased to try to help people with an assortment of issues ranging from anger (hostility, rage, and aggression) to relational issues, adjustment matters, trauma experience, justice involvement, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and depression, and other mood or personality-related matters.

At Hollings Therapy, LLC, serving all of Texas, I aim to treat clients with dignity and respect while offering a multi-lensed approach to the practice of psychotherapy and life coaching. My mission includes: Prioritizing the cognitive and emotive needs of clients, an overall reduction in client suffering, and supporting sustainable growth for the clients I serve. Rather than simply trying to help you to feel better, I want to try to help you get better!

Deric Hollings, LPC, LCSW

References:

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Hollings, D. (2024, April 26). Eudaimonia. Hollings Therapy, LLC. Retrieved from https://www.hollingstherapy.com/post/eudaimonia

Hollings, D. (2024, April 21). Existentialism. Hollings Therapy, LLC. Retrieved from https://www.hollingstherapy.com/post/existentialism

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