In October 2003, Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

The doctors told him he had 3-6 months to live. During the next 12 hours, he started mentally preparing himself to say his final goodbyes.

Later that same night, the doctors took a biopsy of his tumor and looked at it under the microscope – and then they started to cry. It turned out that the cancer Jobs had was a rare type that could actually be eliminated. Nine months later, he underwent surgery and the cancer was gone.

Two years after that, Jobs addressed the graduating class at Stanford University; it has since become the most-viewed commencement speech on the Internet. In it, he told his audience:

“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. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”

Just a few years later, the cancer returned. This time, Jobs did not survive. But the wisdom he shared in his commencement speech remains, challenging the rest of us to take a hard look at our life choices.

Death Shows Us How to Live

Death is the only thing that truly eliminates all our options. That’s why death is the ultimate litmus test for how to live our lives.

If we knew we were going to die in five years – or even ten or twenty – what changes would we make to how we live? Would those things be any different if we knew we were going to live another fifty years (instead of just a few)? Or would they be the same?

The first big challenge is that it’s not comfortable to think about death.

It’s scary, and it’s the unknown. Besides, don’t we want to focus on the here and now and being “happy” and all that? Wouldn’t dwelling on death just interrupt the precious few moments of life we have?

Yes and no.

Living in perpetual anxiety and fear of dying is no recipe for a life of meaning. But accepting death as a part of life is.

And if we’re to have the right perspective for living our lives, we need to get comfortable thinking about death.

What Are You Doing With Your 24 Hours?

Michel de Montaigne was a 16th-century French philosopher who spent a lot of time (maybe too much time) in his library alone with his thoughts. In an essay published in 1580, he wrote:

“To begin depriving death of its greatest advantage over us, let us adopt a way clean contrary to that common one; let us deprive death of its strangeness; let us frequent it, let us get used to it; let us have nothing more often in mind than death.” 

I think Montaigne’s main point is less about having skull memorabilia lying around (though nothing wrong with that if it’s your thing) and more about developing a habit of daily contemplation.

We can start getting used to the idea of death and life being finite by examining each of our 24-hour cycles. Was it worth those hours of surfing the Internet and learning random new facts about esoteric topics?

Did we really need to check our email six times?

Did we have any meaningful conversations with loved ones? Was it a day “well spent”?

Each day we live is a mini microcosm of life. We have the morning, afternoon, and evening to do whatever we think we need to. And then the pall of sleep arrives and we’re dead to the world for the next 6-8 hours. It’s too late to do any more.

Some days are filled with meaning, and we “die” at bedtime with a sense of satisfaction and contentment. Other days are complete shit and others still feel like a total waste of time.

What matters is that we’re making strides to have more meaningful days and fewer mindless days. And hopefully, all our days together make up a whole that is both beautiful and purposeful.

So what does a beautiful and purposeful life look like?

Let’s go back to Steve Jobs’ speech.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life,” Jobs told his listeners. “Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.”

That’s a lot to unpack.

It’s a comment that’s worth sitting down, thinking about, and writing a response to.

Here’s my own version of what Jobs is saying:

Live a life that you want. That you are consciously choosing. Don’t be a tumbleweed blowing around in the wind, reacting to what other people are doing and saying. Understand your own brain and your own heart, and take responsibility for what happens to you. 

Be brave and embark on the adventure of your life. We’re all going to die at some point, so let’s make the most of our time until then.

A Quick Way to Shift Your Mindset 

I’m going to ask you two versions of the same question.

Give yourself a moment to think about each one. (Make sure you read and answer the first one before you read the second one).

Version A: “What do you want to do before you die?”

Notice how generic this question is.

It’s the “bucket list” question – even though it includes the word “die” it doesn’t sound scary or limiting. We can easily come up with a long list of things that seem important, fun, and exciting: travel the world, learn Portuguese, become proficient at playing the piano, and on and on.

Now pay attention to the second version of this question:

Version B: “You have exactly twenty-five years left to live. What are you doing to do with them?”

Now you have a (literal) deadline. There’s no getting around the fact you’re going to be worm-food, and probably sooner than you thought. Twenty-five years is not very long, but it’s still enough time to do several very important and meaningful things. Because your time is limited, you’ll have to choose carefully.

Hopefully, both you and I can reasonably expect to live longer than twenty-five years from today. But the truth is, there’s no guarantee. We may live twenty-five more years. We may live fifty more years. We may be like Steve Jobs and only live five more years (or even less).

If you think about the first version of the question, you can come up with a long list of exotic destinations you want to travel to, skills you’d like to master, and new experiences you want to try. There’s no limit. There’s no figurative shopping basket that’s becoming too full and spilling over.

But as soon as there’s a hard number, you’re forced to look within your core and think about the things you want most but are too scared, passive, or anxious to prioritize in your life.

You are forced to confront your very identity. You’re forced to put several of your “items” back on the shelf and only make room for the most important.

It’s not easy to talk or even think about death if you’re not used to doing it. But the more you do so, the easier it gets. One of the big misconceptions out there is that thinking about death is morbid. The simple truth is, thinking about death is helpful. And practical.

And it will probably lead you to happiness and your heart’s desire more quickly than thinking of anything else.

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