“The meaning of life is that it stops.” — Franz Kafka
“I’m the one that’s got to die when it’s time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to.” — Jimi Hendrix
“If you live each day as it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” — Steve Jobs
“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.” — Steve Jobs
“Almost everything…just fall[s] away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important…Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking: you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” — Steve Jobs
“Why do we fear death? Why are we so afraid of death? In fact, when you are in the deep sleep phase every night, you’re essentially dead. It’s not the experience of being dead that we fear, but the time we haven’t spent on living the life we wanted or doing things we wanted to do that we fear. If you were truly living your ideal, dream, and fulfilling life on your own terms, in a way you want, I don’t think you really fear death. Why? First, you would be too busy living. Second, you don’t have any regrets.” — Naval Ravikant
Mortality
Death is the destination we all share. No one ever escapes from it. Live for death.
Death is scary. It’s uncomfortable to think about. So we tend to avoid it. But when we use it as a frame of reference like this, it can be a powerful tool for clarity. Internalize the scarcity of life and certainty/inescapability of death.
Death is the ultimate equalizer. We may look different, live in different places, and believe different things, but in the end, we are all the same.
[@XiaoYeZhu.YouXieShiZheXieNianWoCaiDongXiaoYeDeRenShengSiKao2012]
唯有死亡等在路的盡頭，才能顯得出每個人活著的不同意義。人並不是因為死亡逼近了才會去想死亡，人在很小的時候就會知覺到生命是會消逝的，通常那就是長大成熟的開始，也是 自覺 的起點。
最大化快樂，最小化後悔/遺憾 1
- Don’t be on your deathbed someday, having squandered your one chance at life, full of regret because you pursued little distractions instead of big dreams.
- “The Dash” by Linda Ellis
- “We don’t beat the reaper by living longer, but by living well, and living fully — for the reaper will come for all of us. The question is: what do we do between the time we’re born and the time he shows up. Because when he shows up, it’s too late to do all the things that you always wanted to get around to. It is not the things we do in life that we regret on our deathbed. It is the things we do not.” — Randy Pausch
The Reverse Obituary Technique
- Write down what you want your obituary/eulogy/gravestone to say, then figure out how to live up to it
- Use this exercise to identify your true priorities in life, and then create an action plan to go after them
Memento Mori is a Latin phrase that translates to “remember that you must die.” (mortality)
Memento Homo is a Latin phrase that translates to “remember that you are just a man or a person.”
Bronnie Ware’s “Top Five Regrets of the Dying”
What people most often regret before they die (Deathbed Regret): 2
- I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not trying to a people pleaser and lived the life others expected of me.
- I wish I didn’t work so hard. 3
- I wish I had the courage to express my feelings.
- I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
- I wish that I had let myself be happier.
To avoid these mistakes, PG inverted the regrets to five commands:
- Don’t ignore your dreams
- Don’t work too much
- Say what you think
- Cultivate friendships
- Be happy.
Takeaway: The biggest regrets aren’t about failing; they’re about not trying at all. No one ever said: “I wish I hadn’t tried so many things.” on their deathbed. More often than not, people regret the chances they didn’t take, the dreams they set aside, and the experiences they were too afraid to pursue.
Remarks: Through history, people have gone back into their own pasts, sometime to a precious, unstructured time in their life, and often, the mind gravitates in the past to a moment of shame, some sin of anger/self-pity committed, some act of selfishness, an act of omission/shallowness, a lack of courage.
- Personal things (letters to family, your will, mementos)
- Life admin (passwords, insurance details, medical information)
- Business (org charts, list of trusted advisors)
- Asset (finance statements, property titles)
- Final to-do lists
「學會死亡，你就學會活著……」[@albomTuesdaysMorrieOld2006]
生前喪禮 (Living Funnel)
As long as there is love, there will be grief, because grief is love’s natural continuation. Don’t fear sadness of loss, as it tends to sit right next to the joy love.
See also:
Footnotes
-
The Regret Minimization Framework: The goal is to minimize the number of regrets, remorse (懊悔; 悔恨; 自責), and “acts of omission (the act of not including something or someone that should have been included)” in life. ↩
-
None of them is “I wish I had earned more money.” ↩
-
20 years from now, the only people who will remember that you worked late are your kids ↩