When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
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. 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…
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet 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. It is life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. 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. Everything else is secondary.
Read the whole speech from Steve Jobs (2005) @
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html
Follow your heart and intuition,
but do follow mindfully,
with compassion and wisdom,
lest you follow wrongly!
A very inspiring piece of speech. Makes me recall how much sacrifices the Buddha put into pursuing the truth for the benefit of all sentient beings. The degree of his determination. From giving up his throne all the way to the austerities he went through in practicing extreme asceticism for six years. Luckily he did not die but he lived a life worse than death for six years and death can sometimes be mistakenly be regarded as a relief. If any man who died for another is great. The Buddha who lived a life worse than death in order to realize the truth for all sentient beings for 6 years is no less greater. Maybe someone should share what extreme asceticism comprise of.