The benefits of a morbid outlook

Ever since I was a small kid, I've been accused by people who know me well of being morbid. I often consider my own death, think about the people I will leave behind and what I will leave unfinished. I think it's an outgrowth of my general disposition toward planning for the worst, but it may also have to do with having more than one, completely unrelated serious illness when I was seven years old. Whatever the cause, my morbid fascination was a leg up in high school when I started reading Eastern philosophy. In particular the simplified, pop culture version of Eastern philosophy which often appeals to adolescents often concerns itself with being at peace with your life at the moment that you die. In other words, there's a focus on being prepared for death. At it's most watered down and popular version, it involves "living with no regrets"; although in the original context it has more to do with detachment than it does indulging in all of life's passions. I like the idea. But, I wonder if it doesn't represent too much focus on one particular moment in time. Could you take the same concept and apply it to other moments? Could you suitably live your life with a focus on having the right attitude toward your marriage, a professional goal, or raising your children until they are ready to leave the nest? Would single-minded focus on these moments be any less valid than a single-minded focus on one's own death? After all, death is only the end for one individual. Perhaps building a personal philosophy around morbid fascination is, in some way, selfish. I know that, after years of focusing on my emotions concerning my own death, I'm infinitely more comfortable with the idea than I am with the idea of my wife dying. Lately, I've become more enamored with an idea I came across, attributed to Plato -- and that is the idea of approaching life as an art form. That is to say that, beyond being prepared for the moment of death itself, you should live your life so that, when you day, your life has been a compelling story. I like this for a couple of reasons. First of all, it includes morbid fascination, but is substantially fuller. It includes not only living well (for example, working on your marriage or profession), but also handling mistakes. A good story has conflict, after all. And in that way, secondly, it avoids the trap of a simpler, hedonistic, "no regrets" outlook. Indulgence, by itself, doesn't make for a good story, either. The very vagueness of the concept of a "good story" leads one to transcend overly simplistic approaches to life. And yet, it also inculcates one's own mortality. Like a good story, each of our lives must at some point come to an end.