My Writing Portfolio

You are reading reading through my collection of short stories and poetry. No portions of this content may be used or published elsewhere, in print or digitally, without without my express permission.

© I. A. Phillips

Informed Life Advice

It has come to my attention that you've frozen in life.
Your guardian angel tells me that you are petrified at the thought of death.
So much so that you’ve stopped doing what you enjoy
scared that stress will send you into shock.
Then into the ground.

This panophobia,
This manifestation of your fear of death
It’s difficult to hear about and heartbreaking to watch,
Especially since death isn’t anything to fear.
Not that it is something to rush towards either.

You have mistakenly assumed that if you die then you’ve failed.
This is incorrect.
Death is not failure,
Death is the next adventure.

The transition is scary,
But so is anything done for the first time.
You think I’m wrong?
When a baby first touches a carpet,
What does it do?
it cries,
terrified of the new.
Now a carpet is nothing to fear, is it?
Well, neither is death.

You think that dying is failing at life.
But it is not.
To not fail in life,
Simply have fun.
Do the things you enjoy.
Spend time with friends.
Focus on living,
not dying.

Life is chaos,
it won't always go your way,
but that is not a bad thing,
it allows you to experience novel things.

When you die,
how you lived does matter,
you don’t want to regret not using your time well.
Don’t worry about not doing everything you wanted,
it is impossible for any mortal to,
Or immortal.

Lastly, don’t worry about what happens after death.
That I look forward to explaining in person.
Sometime in the far future.

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