Life is all about depending on oneself.
Do you remember the Pixar’s movie “Coco” by about a grandmother, Mamá Coco?
She has a gorgeous smile with a lot of wrinkles.
We can imagine that at her funeral, she would be surrounded by good friends, family, and a late husband who was inside her heart and ended her happy life.
But in reality, that is not optional for everyone.
There is someone who feels lonely and dies alone.
After the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of people felt lonely, isolated, and in despair.
We have so much stress because of a big life change, such as losing a home, jobs, money, health, family members, and hope.
I was thinking about isolation in our society, and my curiosity picked up the word “Kodokushi.”
It means “lonely death,” which is a bit problematic nowadays in the case of elderly deaths in Japan.
How come people who go on die alone?
It might be that they lost all their hopes in our society.
Their thoughts changed to dealing with others instead of having strong anxiety about problems such as mental, financial, and physical health.
Significantly, avoiding those factors that require people who feel close and worthy, having a strong community, managing oneself, having good self-esteem, and having a daily exercise routine that can decrease a problem is my idea.
This journal will attempt to find solutions to the death of loneliness as well as what life is. So, let’s begin to define “Kodokushi” first by what it is about.
In Japan, the specific word “Kodokushi” was created in 1980, and this issue has become more prevalent in Japanese’ society.
In 2008, in Tokyo, more than 2,200 people over the age of 65 died of loneliness, according to statistics from the city’s Bureau of Social Welfare and Public Health (Nobel 2010).
According to Yoshida, who started a business to clean out the home of death in Japan, as produced by Time magazine, the people die alone, sprawled on the floor beside crumpled clothing and dirty dishes, tucked beneath flowery bedspreads, slouched against the wall.
Months, even years, can pass before somebody notices a body.
On occasion, all that’s left are bones.
“The majority of lonely deaths are people who are kind of messy,” he said.
From his words, people who die alone are messy, lazy, and have no energy to do anything.
Also, another reason is the impact of disasters, with cases increasing, for example, after the 1995 Kobe earthquake in Japan (Bris 2019).
In Japan, it can be tough to live without fear of earthquakes because there are so many and they are predictable but unavoidable.
Probably everyone still remembers the strongest earthquake in Japan’s recorded history, the Fukushima earthquake in 2011.
I was there, and it was really horrible at the moment. In fact, a lot of people died and were hopeless in the tsunami that day.
“Kodokushi” or “dying alone” is a growing problem in Japan, where 27.7 percent of the population is aged over 65 and many people are giving up trying to find partners in middle age, opting instead for a solitary existence.
Those are two big reasons to increase anxiety and depression and make it difficult to live, for sure. However, psychologically, we can fix laziness and depression.
If you learn about the system of neurons, it is manipulatable.
First of all, “low serotonin levels” were associated with the presence of depressive symptoms (Trujillo 2021).
I believe that if people can change to increase their strength both mentally and physically, they can get out of their small apartment and get a coffee, go for a walk, or talk with neighbors.
And if they don’t have the option to choose where to live, then they should change their mind and gain the physical strength that is required to live in our society.
For maintaining a good serotonin level, walking, running, biking, and swimming, are aerobic exercises that significantly increase serotonin production in the body (Higgins 2019).
The other idea is that the key is self-esteem.
According to Bum’s Journal, they examined the relationships among the factors of fun with a group of 249 players from tennis clubs located in South Korea.
According to their experiment, exercising increased positive self-esteem and happiness (Bum 2016).
If people are busy or stuck, fitness leads to a healthy and meaningful life through having fun. We can learn how to maintain happiness and emotional stability by promoting positive behavior through physical activities.
And a high level of self-esteem results in a strong tendency to respect oneself and one’s surroundings.
So, that makes it worthwhile. This is probably the same for young adults and children. Because depression and laziness are not about age.
Depression in the elderly is not a natural part of aging.
If we can identify this condition, we can provide timely, appropriate treatment that will help restore health (Trujillo 2021).
In this way, we can manage our health level at any age, and it can be decreased to deal with loneliness and the isolation of society.
So, when we can manage our health, we need people to feel that they are not alone.
But how can we meet people and have a good relationship with them?
According to Prince-Paul, within the context of end-of-life (EOL) care, “humans are beings in relationships; in other words, the very essence of human existence is to have close personal connections and relationships with others.”
And the dying experience affects all dimensions of an individual.
Above those things, knowing the fear of death will help create a strong connection with people. When you are old, think about death, which is very helpful for not thinking too much about what has to be done in our society.
For example, if they have cancer or a serious illness from which they expect to die, they think of their lives deeper than young people because they do not really need to think about problems that most people are concerned about, such as financial, physical, debt, etc.
Those who were terminally ill with advanced cancer expressed the importance of creating close personal relationships at the end of life (Prince 2008).
Most young generations never think about death until they have a life-threatening situation or a serious accident.
I can guess that because I hadn’t thought about it until my life event of a huge car accident in 2018.
So, that is why people leave people easily; quick judging makes it difficult to have serious connections with friends, a partner, and even family members too.
I found a newspaper that had an interesting story about how they were complete strangers, but they became friends for life.
Frank Rembert was 58, and Rick Wilson was 42. They had joined in fishing together, and they mentioned real friendships.
Rembert was one who needed a lifesaving kidney transplant; Wilson made it for him. From their conversation, “I just feel that I can talk to Frank about anything.
I can confide in him. I can share my deepest thoughts with him. I value his advice,”(Quintanilla 1996).
This kind of friendship isn’t easy to have.
So, it could be known from the newspaper what a real and deeper connection there is between these two guys, and we can learn from them.
Because people are reflections.
If you don’t know what a real friendship? then you will never know it and never meet them.
What luck is after COVID-19 in our lives is that we will have fear, anxiety, isolation, and financial worries in the future, but it will give us a new awareness, hope, and a true sense of connection.
We thanks to that, we will be able to rethink life.
Controlling your emotional state and exercising daily to manage your physical and mental health, plus knowing of death for the realization of yourself more to help a good connection with people, could help you find your life partner.
Those factors will help decrease lonely deaths, and if people feel isolated in society or family and lonely.
Then follow these steps to create strong self-esteem with love yourself.
However, when I was researching this topic, I realized that “Kodokushi” itself is not bad at all.
Because I had dinner with my best friend and discussed it. He said,
“Lonely death is not bad because people who want to die alone are happy to die alone with no one to take care of them,”
“They didn’t want to bother surrounding him or her, which was the best choice for them.”
Then, I concluded that I was thinking of a lonely death was bad or sad from my perspective, but that idea of mine comes from conforming to society’s values.
The different types of people there are not of the same value in society, and Mamá Coco style is just not for them.
In fact, there are two ways to think about whether dying alone is sad or comfortable.
It all depends on people and what is valuable to them.
“Kodokushi” is one of the options for dying and when you are old enough and realize that you are dying soon, there is nothing wrong with being alone.
If you can at least not feel lonely in life, and your life is currently filled with the excitement of living and surviving with your family and friends, then you can die alone at the end of your life.
Alone, it’s not bad at all.