by Arnold R. Beisser

About the author: Arnold R. Beisser is a professor of psychiatry at the University of California at Los Angeles. He is the author of A Graceful Passage: Notes on the Freedom to Live or Die, from which the following viewpoint is taken.

The urgency of dealing with my own life was greatly heightened by a startling hallucination that awakened me one morning—a stentorian voice prophesying that I would die in 1,500 days.

Although a disturbing experience, the event served a useful purpose. It focused my attention on the fact that I’d better start living the way I wanted and at each moment.

Making Changes

Ever since I had become disabled, I had been trying to prove to myself and the world that I was as good as...