Seniors: "The Mortality Paradox"

In short, the mortality paradox states that because things are mortal, we will love them better. If we all lived forever, if nothing ever changed or died away, no one thing would mean more than another.

"This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long."

In Shakespeare's sonnet, we are the ones about to leave something or someone behind -- our family, our friends, our school, our homes. Separation causes pain. And when you must leave things forever, that hurts the most.

But, as Joy tells Jack in Shadowlands "the pain then is part of the happiness now." The happier we are in life, the more we love people or things, the more it hurts to lose them. That's the mortality paradox.