I grew up in a hospital. When playing hide-and-seek with other kids there, I’d often accidentally wander into places I shouldn’t have been. Once, I hid in an open ward in the inpatient building and saw a lifeless old man lying in bed, tubes and machines connected all over his body, staring blankly at the ceiling. I froze in that moment, stood there for a beat, then turned and ran as fast as I could. But that feeling of death has stayed with me ever since.

When I first entered the workforce, I was consumed by a sense of emptiness, and my disgust toward others hit an all-time high. I couldn’t tolerate anything that disrupted my experience, and I was emotionally unstable. In this chaos of emotions, I began to question the meaning of being alive. So many things felt meaningless, and that filled me with despair. I was probably trapped in the turbulence of self-actualization on Maslow’s hierarchy — not knowing why I was alive, nor what I was living for.

My mind was racing nonstop, running through every possible outcome, and I couldn’t even sleep properly. I felt an intense insecurity toward everything around me. My energy was drained to its absolute limit. Eventually I couldn’t hold it together anymore — my temper turned volatile, and my emotions teetered on the edge of collapse.

I picked up Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and it made me realize that I could have a Chautauqua with myself. But the real awakening came when I started learning meditation. I began studying the concept of emptiness in early Buddhism and tried to quiet my racing thoughts through practice. Around the same time, a colleague taught me a simple trick: when everything feels overwhelming, lift your head and look at the sky. I later learned from neuroscience that this action releases pressure from the prefrontal cortex, which is why it brings a sense of relief.

After I started meditating, I gradually developed a conception of death. For many people, death may be a release — a way to escape a painful reality. When I became conscious of death, I started thinking about the meaning of my life and the quality of my existence. The image of that old man from my childhood game of hide-and-seek came back to me. He was so close to death, yet he wasn’t happy either. Life can’t guarantee that everything will be valuable, but the experience of doing different things — and how different people experience the same thing — varies completely. The quality of life lies in the ability to perceive each moment, to collect information from all five senses in the here and now. When I eat each bite of food with full attention, savoring the taste and smell, I’m happy — and I remember how it felt. When I get on my motorcycle and ride out to explore the unknown, my eyes and ears are filled with joy — I’ll never forget that feeling. The quality of life comes down to the ability to notice beauty. Only by truly experiencing the process can you discover happiness. Only by looking inward can you find beautiful memories worth holding onto.

I’m not afraid of death, because I know I’ve felt the beauty of this world. And I want more people to know how to find their own way of experiencing it — to let life bloom in all its brilliance.