What Happens Next? And Will I Get In?

For centuries, we’ve been taught to fear what comes next. Be good. Follow the rules. Do what you’re told.

Put money in the collection basket. Does that get me in?

Go to services every week. Does that get me in?

Say the right prayers.
Believe the right things.
Live the right way.
Does that get me in?

Organized religion has often understood something deeply human: we’re afraid to die. And when someone claims to know what happens afterward, fear can become a powerful form of control.

You see, none of us know what happens after we die. That’s the one big unknown that has frightened, controlled and even caused extreme anxiety in so many. And mankind has known this and taken full advantage.

Dani dies and discovers something she never expected. The fear didn’t end with death. The institution just changed.

In Dani’s afterlife, there are still rules. Still authorities. Still consequences for questioning them. Souls are told where they belong and expected to accept it because that’s simply the way things are.

And Dani has a problem with that.

She begins asking the question people have been asking for centuries:

Who decides? Who decides who goes where? Who decided that there was even a heaven or a hell? And who gets to decide which actions we’ve taken in our earthly lives direct us toward eternal damnation or eternal paradise?

I personally believe we transition and decide what our next go-round is going to look like. That we choose the lessons we need to learn, pay our karmic debts, evolve and continue moving forward.

Maybe I’m right. Maybe I’m completely wrong.
None of us knows.

And that’s the point.

Dani Danger wasn’t written to tell you what happens when you die. And she certainly wasn’t written to tell anyone what to believe.

She was written to ask who gets to decide.

My hope for this series is that we ask questions. That we don’t accept “that’s just the way it is” simply because someone in authority tells us so. And that we make good, genuine, kind and honest choices about how we live this life because they’re the right choices to make now.

Not because we’re trying to earn admission.
Not because we’re afraid of what happens if we don’t.
And not because we’re chasing some golden ticket waiting for us at the pearly gates.

Maybe being a good human shouldn’t require a reward.

Maybe it should simply require being human.