Make it count, while we still can

⏱ About 8 minutes✎ one 20 to 30 minute exercise★ On all the other days, we will not

By the end you'll have named what you'd change if the time were short.

We don't tend to talk about death. It's not exactly dinner-table conversation. But I've come to think a little of it, now and then, is one of the most life-giving things we can do.

It sounds grim. It isn't, not really. Held lightly, the fact that this doesn't go on forever is exactly what gives the ordinary day its weight. When we forget we're finite, we treat time as infinite, and infinite time is strangely easy to waste. We'll get to the things that matter later. There's always later. Until, one day, there isn't.

There's an exchange I love, between Charlie Brown and Snoopy. Charlie Brown: "We only live once." Snoopy: "Wrong! We only die once. We live every day!" That's the whole thing, really. The point of remembering the end isn't to dwell on it. It's to wake up to the living we get to do every day.

So this isn't morbid. It's clarifying. A short, honest look at the horizon has a way of sorting the loud from the important. It quietens the things we were anxious about, and turns up the volume on the people and the work we'd actually miss.

In practiceI did this exercise in January, and it clarified so much. I realised one of the things that mattered most to me was moving forward with Captaincy, particularly the book. And so much of the rest just wasn't important. It came down to relationships, and impact for others.

Try it

While we still can

Set aside 20 to 30 minutes. No distractions.

The common trapTreating this as morbid and avoiding it. The point isn't death. It's clarity.

In summary

A little memento mori isn't grim. It's clarifying.
When we forget we're finite, we treat time as infinite, and waste it.
"We only die once. We live every day!"

To journal

If this were your last year, what's the first thing you'd stop doing, and the first thing you'd start?

Best taken to your own journal. If you would rather jot a line here, it stays on this device only; nothing is sent to us or stored anywhere else.

Go deeper

⭐ Captaincy of Work and Life · Michael Blackhurst

This lesson is condensed from chapter 1.9; the book has the full version, the stories, and the deeper why.

When Breath Becomes Air · Paul Kalanithi

A neurosurgeon facing his own mortality.

Being Mortal · Atul Gawande

On living well right to the end.

The Top Five Regrets of the Dying · Bronnie Ware

What people wish they'd done.

‹ Previous1.8 The price of peacekeeping · in the full courseNext ›1.10 Choosing where we go · in the full course

Lesson built from Captaincy of Work and Life, chapter 1.9. The book remains a separate product.