The Power of Perspective
We are all going to die. It’s simply a matter of when and how.
Perhaps that’s not the motivational speech you expected, but bear with me - because this is one truth I always return to time and time again.
We get so wrapped up in our daily lives, our jobs, our hobbies, the errands we need to run today after work, our schedules, what the girl at school said about your kid, why the neighbor bought a new car in that hideous color, if your thighs are too fat or if it’s just awful lighting in your bedroom.
So. Much. Little. Shit.
We worry and plan and fret and fear. We’re unwilling to look cringy or inexperienced and we’re definitely not keen on failure. We buy into ideas and a culture that simultaneously tells us to be grateful for what you have while being sold the idea that if we work a little harder you can have it all.
It’s death by 1,000 paper cuts.
Two Hard Ways to Zoom Out
Want clarity? Hop out of an airplane with nothing but a parachute. That snaps perspective real quick.
I did it for years and it gave me a really clean way to tap into what matters. From 12,000 feet above the ground the houses look like tiny toys. The cars are nearly invisible. The horizon unfurls in every direction. What even is a utility bill? Who cares about that fight you had last night? It’s you, your body versus the earth, and time, in one big (but fast) decision.
Another quick road to clarity? I was on the 73 Toll Road heading towards Newport Coast in Orange County. The exit lane was stacked with cars as we headed towards Fashion Island and I stopped my little sports car a healthy distance from the car in front of us. We sat and sat and then I heard it… the sound of rubber tires screaming on hot asphalt. I watched as the cars behind me moved like cards being shuffled in a deck until I was next. I watched as the car behind me hit me, and then realized I was going to hit the car in front of me as well. My brain sighed, “This is it.”
Now, depending on your aversion to risky behaviors, skydiving may not be your cup of tea. And that’s perfectly okay - there are easier ways to do this.
Turn Towards It
Our culture tends to shy away from anything related to death, which seems odd given that it is literally guaranteed to happen. We might as well become more comfortable with the idea. Not only are we going to die, but so is everyone and everything we know, love, fear and believe we need.
Yikes, right?
But the sooner we turn toward that reality, the sooner we can begin using what it offers us. Remembering that you are going to die is not an invitation to behave recklessly, abandon your responsibilities or blow your savings all at once. It is a way to distinguish between what requires your attention and what has simply become very good at demanding it.
It helps you see the difference between a real problem and an irritated ego. Between something you genuinely want and something you have been trained to pursue. Between maintaining a life you would still choose and remaining in one because changing it would be inconvenient.
Bronnie Ware, who worked in palliative care, wrote that the most common regret she heard from dying patients was:
“I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”
That sentence is uncomfortable because most of us are not completely unaware of the ways we are abandoning ourselves. We know which dreams we keep leaving on the table. We know which relationships require us to become smaller, quieter or less honest. We know which obligations we resent, which ambitions no longer belong to us and which changes we avoid because we do not want to disappoint anyone.
We just assume we have the luxury of dealing with them later.
Use Death as a Filter
You do not need to imagine that you have six months to live and immediately produce a dramatic bucket list. That exercise often leads people toward fantasy because almost no one would continue living normally if given a precise expiration date. Instead, consider the life you are already living:
If it continued as it is for the next five years, how would you feel about that?
What are you spending an enormous amount of energy worrying about that will not matter in a year?
What do you keep saying you will do “someday”?
Where are you allowing embarrassment to make your decisions?
What are you maintaining because other people expect you to?
What would you regret never trying, making, saying, changing or leaving?
And perhaps most importantly: if you reached the end of your life and looked back at this period, what would seem painfully obvious?
You do not need to resolve every question right-effing-now, but you DO need to stop behaving as if refusing to answer them protects you from the consequences. Not choosing is still a choice. Postponing something repeatedly is a decision about how you are willing to use your life.
While You Are Still Here
Death is not useful because it frightens us into squeezing more accomplishments into every available hour - we already have enough pressure to optimize ourselves. Its gift is perspective. It reminds us that the neighbor’s ugly car does not matter. The cellulite does not matter. Looking inexperienced while learning something new does not matter. A great deal of what consumes us now will eventually become completely irrelevant.
But the people we loved, the work that meant something to us, the risks we took, the places we saw, the things we made and the degree to which we were willing to be ourselves will matter. You do not need to wait until you are falling through the sky or listening to tires scream behind you to remember that. You are alive now. You have choices now. You still have time to participate in your own life instead of standing beside it, worried about how it might look to everyone else.
Use that time.
With love,
