Putting the Third-of-life Crisis into Perspective: Buddhism

The search for guidance during my mid-thirties reinvention recently led me to begin "The Way to Freedom: Core Teachings of Tibetan Buddhism" by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.  Last night brought me to the chapter on Death, which opened in part with "of all the different kinds of awareness, awareness of impermanence and death is best" and continued with "of all the people we know or have seen, none will remain in one hundred years."  This filled me with both a sense of relief and with feelings of poignant sadness.  It all matters because we're blessed to have the chance to exist but it (we ourselves, those we love, the world as we know it) will be gone in the blink of an eye.

I won't lie and say I'm not afraid of dying, though perhaps that means I've got some spiritual growth to attend to.  The truth is that when I try to get a grip on what it means to die and the fact that it will happen, I'm terrified.  It feels like my brain is somewhat incapable of imagining its own physical death.  My own fear and difficulty in wrapping my head around death itself along with imagining the loss of everyone I love is painful and sad.  Despite this, however, there is a flip side.  Realizing such total inevitable loss makes me feel both like "I am so lucky to have right now" and as if "none of the worldly stuff is going to matter not too long from today."  It's pretty crazy when you think about it: We live knowing that no matter what we do it will all be gone, all be over... soon.  For me that makes the important things seem pretty obvious.

Is it morbid to use death as a constant reminder that provides life perspective?  Or is it true, as the Dalai Lama says, that "if you reflect upon death and impermanence, you will begin to make your life meaningful"?  The best moments I have of late are the ones when, despite uncertainty or petty annoyances or sadness, I'm able to appreciate the brevity of things.  Does it really matter whether or not I find my life's passion in my next career or achieve some level of "success" again when everything is so fleeting anyway?  Is it wise to worry about "figuring it all out" at the expense of missing the things I'm so lucky to have (i.e. friends, family, significant other) right now?

A common thread between quarterlife, third-of-life, and midlife (or any-phase-of-life!) crises is the realization that we're not immortal and that the "someday" we've always been striving for, working for, and sacrificing for may not arrive before we die.  It's the "is this really my life?" feeling.  It's the feeling that the whole thing may just pass us by.  Could remembering how brief each of our life moments are in the massive span of time remind us, even during mundane day-to-day existence, how incredibly lucky we are just to be here?  Could that help alleviate some of the angst of the "x-of-life" crises?