I will never forget the first experience I had with death.

I was 8 years old, and it was the first day of second grade. In school, I was without a doubt the most awkward kid there. I had thick dark-rimmed glasses and braces, and I was never seen without my raging mullet. I loved school, but sadly, I didn’t have very many friends in class (in retrospect, it was probably because of the mullet). As such, my chief social interactions were with Fred, my goldfish of three years.

On that day, I rushed home from school to see Fred and tell him all about my new adventures. As I raced into my bedroom, I saw Fred floating at the top of the tank, but he wasn’t doing a fun fish trick. He was dead.

I stood there with my jaw dropped for several minutes, unable to move. I was confused and frightened by the fact that something that had been living only hours earlier was now stiff and lifeless.

Hot tears slid down my chubby face and fogged up my thick glasses. That afternoon, I began to plan the most elaborate fish funeral that anyone had ever seen. I gathered my parents for a funeral procession out to the back yard, and I even wrote old Freddy a poem with my smudgy child’s handwriting. I was devastated, but I learned something very important that day: Everything dies.

Looking back, this passing seems insignificant and almost trivial, for later in my life I would experience the deaths of many people that I loved dearly. But with each tragic loss that I have experienced, I have begun to realize that the topic of death doesn’t get any easier for me — it gets harder. My thoughts toward death remain the same now as they did on that fateful day many years ago with my goldfish. Simply put, death always has, and probably always will, scare the crap out of me.

Apparently, I’m not alone.

In the longevity-and-image obsessed nation that is America, dying is one of the biggest fears constantly weighing on people’s minds.

According to the Web site marginalrevolution.com, the average American spends 15 percent of his or her wealth over the course of their lifetime on drugs aimed to help them live longer. Somewhere in the hysteria of longevity, Americans are consuming more and more drugs in an attempt to gain an extra few years.

An interesting side note to this is the fact that while Americans might be willing to spend thousands of dollars on miracle medicines, they are not willing to exercise or eat healthily. The side effects of an unhealthy diet and sedentary lifestyle are some of the leading causes of shorter lives in this country.

In essence, many of us would rather live long, stretched out and possibly mediocre lives rather than amazing yet short ones.

The American fear of death, in addition to being very powerful commercially, is a truth that is heavily exploited by politicians.

An article in the Journal of Young Investigators (JYI) explains that many politicians tap into this huge fear and use it to sway voters toward their campaigns.

The JYI describes several studies that have been completed on this matter, where a group of people are shown images of death and reminded of their own impending mortality. After the morbid images were shown, the group was shown different speeches by different politicians. The results showed that the group was in unanimous favor of the more charismatic leaders vs. the more down to earth and timid politicians.

The reasons for this preference occurred because thoughts of death create the need for psychological security. Charismatic leaders increase feelings of self-confidence in people, which in turn creates a feeling of security.

Many argue that with religion comes the acceptance of an afterlife and therefore a smaller fear of death. Research has shown, however, that only the extremely religious feel free from this fear, as well as many atheists. The moderately religious, which make up the majority of Americans, is the group which reports the strongest fear of death.

Most of America struggles with this fear, and it seems that we are so preoccupied with the fear that we never really start living.

For many, it takes a near death experience, or the death of someone particularly close to them, to begin to live life to its fullest. I can completely relate to this, since like many average college students, I have never had a near-death experience, or lost a loved one especially close to me. The average college student is also moderately religious or agnostic, which statistically speaking, increases his or her fear of death. This is startling to me, as the average college student is also in his or her 20s and has at least 60 years of happy and healthy life ahead of them to be enjoyed.

I’ve had enough. I’m tired of letting this fear interfere with an exciting and full life. Although it may be short, life is the most important thing we have, and it’s time to stop being afraid and make the most of it.

My new goal is to stop worrying about living long, but instead, worry about living well. Abe Lincoln said it best when he mused, “In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”

Reach columnist Sara Wilson at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.