Dying to Live

Every day is filled with moments that time claims for the past. We hardly have enough presence for the moments we are in. Before we know it, life has swept by and time will claim us for the past as well. As much as we all wish to exist in perpetuity, we just won’t.

There is a certain amount of cognitive dissonance with the concept of death and because of that, many go on living as though they will never die. There isn’t an urgency to live, there is almost no awareness that we will die. We are all surprised when we reach a certain age that we thought would take a thousand years to get to. I am certainly guilty of this.

So, how do we leverage death to give us life? Steve Jobs was one of those that could do this. He found inspiration in knowing he would die, so that he would succeed in life. The acceptance of it seems to free people to live. An example of this would be anyone that engages with extreme sports. They are more than aware of the possibility of death, it is part of why they do it. This is the kind of resolve we could all have, to accept death and pursue life despite it.

“Death is the destination we all share, no one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be because death is very likely the single best invention of life.” — Steve Jobs