You're Going to Die, But You Also Get to Live
The good news about the ultimate bad news.
There are two ways of thinking about death. The most common is factually correct, but also somewhat removed from the person thinking about it:
1. Everyone dies someday.
The other way is much more personal:
2. Someday, I will die.
In Time Anxiety, I wrote about how thinking about death can help us to live better. Of course, it can also be scary and anxiety-inducing. So what’s the difference?
I think the difference lies in accepting the fact that death is inevitable, while also seeing it as the ultimate deadline for shaping our lives. No, we can’t outpace death, but with the limited amount of control we do have—what shall we do? How should we spend our time? What matters most?
When you begin to think this way, naturally you begin to live differently. Instead of saying yes to every request that comes your way, you start asking: "Is this worth my limited time?" Instead of drifting through your days, you become more intentional about how you spend them.
It also gives you a built-in excuse for anything you don’t want to do:
“Would you like to jump on a quick call?”
“No thank you, I’m going to die one day.”
We’re stressed out about time because there’s not enough of it—but the cool thing about being able to reflect on this idea is that you still have time.
It’s a weird realization, right? By nature of thinking about your death, you’re still in a place where you can make changes in your life. And once you begin thinking this way, instead of feeling overwhelmed, you can feel inspired.
There’s Not Enough Time (But There’s Time Right Now!)
I’ve always loved reinvention stories—second acts, career shifts, or people just generally making a big change at some key point in their life. There’s something powerfully inspiring in hearing how someone looked at the path they were on and decided nope, I’m going to change paths.
The journalist who became a high school principal
The retail manager who started their own nonprofit
The 45-year-old who sold everything to travel the world in an RV
The shy introvert who became a community organizer
The person who spoke only English until 40, then became fluent in several other languages
What these stories share is a moment of reckoning—a recognition that time is limited and the life they were living wasn't the one they wanted to finish with. If you think about it, you can probably recall at least one person you know who’s undertaken a big reinvention. (Or maybe you’ve done it yourself! If so, good for you.)
For every one of those people, just imagine how many others remain stuck—living lives of “quiet desperation” or otherwise metaphorically looking out a window at another life that remains outside their grasp.
I’ll never get tired of hearing those reinvention stories, and I’ve shared different versions of them in each of my books. Sure, life is short—but if you’re reading this now, there’s still time.
Thinking about death helps you live better. You’re going to die one day, but you also get to live until then.
I’m feeling this, particularly because I just had a brush with death called “perforated appendix with peritonitis.”
After waiting eleven hours in the ER waiting room while my perforated appendix leaked poison into me, causing peritonitis (which was 100% fatal before antibiotics), I had surgery the next morning. See ya, appendix!
Five days of IV cefoxitin later, I went home, weak and exhausted.
What a wake-up call!
I immediately let go of things in my life that weren’t working, like an IFS podcast of my own personal work that no one seemed to be particularly interested in.
I’m doubling down on foundational health now— moving more (daily walks top the list) and COMMITTING to developing a circadian rhythm that’s THE SAME every day.
I’m going to be publicly accountable by posting a note of my Oura ring readout daily in this effort, which I’m calling “the summer of sleep.” My goal is to be in bed by 8 pm DAILY!
It’s not because I have the mental belief this is a good idea.
It’s because empirically, when I go to bed by eight pm, then I get enough sleep and feel better.
I have to surrender to what works for me.
I agree that knowing we’re going to die means we may as well surrender now to the little ego-deaths or sense of control the MIND wants, to allow the deeper truths of who we are to emerge.
Why not die a little today, to live more fully for the rest of our time on earth?
Doing stuff past eight o’clock is fun, but not more fun than listening to what my deepest truths are and aligning with them.
Here to the little deaths that allow us to live our biggest lives!
"Why not die a little today, to live more fully for the rest of our time on earth?"
I'm going to carry that one with me for awhile.
Even going to bed feels like a mini death. The day is over. That was it. It might have been great or terrible but it is over. No, I didn't get to do all I wanted to today. My body / brain got tired. I am human, I am limited and that is beautiful. My limits bring a deeper meaning to how I spend my resources, even my emotional resources. Why do my kids have such a hard time going to bed? Perhaps for the same reason I do. Surrender. Who wants to do that? Not me. To go to bed before your body is demanding it of you is to walk in a truth that life is best lived by surrendering and by the courage to get up again. One right act of letting go gives us the strength to take up something of greater value. And that thing is often what our hearts were leading us to all along.