I saw why people died and how they died. I saw gunshot wounds and liver failure. It was a good learning experi... — Michael Baden

I saw why people died and how they died. I saw gunshot wounds and liver failure. It was a good learning experience, so I came regularly on weekends and holidays.

Author: Michael Baden

Insight: Most of us avoid thinking about death until we have to. We change the channel during medical scenes, we don't ask follow-up questions when someone mentions a funeral, we shuffle past the reality of it. Michael Baden did the opposite—he walked directly into the county morgue as a student and chose to show up again and again, deliberately, on his own time. There's something almost shocking about calling death "a good learning experience." But his point cuts through our squeamishness to something true: understanding how things actually work, even difficult things, makes us less afraid of them and often more competent in the face of them. Whether it's understanding your own aging body, grieving someone close to you, or just having conversations that matter, the people who handle these moments best are usually the ones who studied them beforehand instead of waiting for crisis to force it on them. The real insight isn't morbid. It's that the willingness to look closely at hard truths—not to be grim about it, but to really see—is a form of respect. Respect for understanding the world as it actually is, not as we wish it to be. It also happens to make you better at your work, your relationships, and your own peace of mind.