Life Is Short...But That's A Good Thing!

You’ve heard the expression “life is short” a million times before. People say it to remind themselves and others that we’re only here for a limited time and that we should make the most of it. 

We’re wonderfully constructed creatures living in a world of near-infinite complexity and beauty. We shouldn’t waste the day. We should seize it. We never know when the time will come for it all to end. Hopefully, that day will be a long while from now, but there are no guarantees. 

We live in a culture that doesn’t like to talk about the realities of our mortality. Twenty percent of our economy we dedicate to keeping people alive and in a state of health. But despite the enormous expenditure, we rarely think about the reality of our existence. And that’s probably a good thing. People don’t want to spend their lives thinking about something depressing. 

Life might be short, but in this post, we’re going to argue that that’s a good thing. Here are some of the reasons why. 

It Forces You To Focus

Imagine you knew you were going to live forever. How might that change your behavior? 

We don’t know precisely how this thought experiment would play out in reality because we can never put it to the test. But there’s a good chance that you’d be more inclined to put things off for tomorrow. If you knew that there would always be another day that might disincentivize you to act today. You could put off major life decisions, like starting a business or having children. Ultimately, it wouldn’t matter when you did those things. 

Having a time limit on your life forces you to focus your decision-making. You can’t afford to let the years roll by without anything happening. You need to make decisions now that will support your long-term ambitions and allow you to get what you want out of life. 

It Makes You Prioritize

We would all like to have it all: a family, plenty of money in the bank, excellent health, lots of children, and fulfilling spiritual life. But the shortness of life means that you don’t always have time to pursue those things. At some point along the journey, you have to prioritize.

Setting out your priorities, however, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it can be something that helps you focus and get the most out of your life. If you lived forever, you could take a scattergun approach, doing a bit of everything and then waiting a hundred years until you go what you wanted. But when time is much more limited, you have to drill down into the details and think carefully about what you really want from life. It is quite empowering because it helps you better define who you are. 

It Gives You A Legacy

Imagine if some of history’s greatest people had lived forever. Martin Luther King was a great man, but would we hold him in such high regard if he were still alive today? Probably not. 

Now that he has passed away, his legacy has taken on deified proportions. He is more than just a man in the memory of most people. 

Living for a finite amount of time gives you a legacy. What’s more, you get to decide what this legacy is. 

You can decide how people remember you. It could be something as simple as using urns in marble to store your ashes or as complicated as setting up a trust fund to educate your children and grandchildren. Mortality gives you a way to leave your mark on the world for posterity. 

It Forces You To Appreciate The Time You Have

When you study the happiest people in the world, you find a common thread: they’re all incredibly grateful people. 

It is easy to get bogged down by life. There seems to be all these pressures that hold you back, from dysfunctional relationships to demanding bosses. Grateful people, however, try to look past all the negativity. No matter what life throws at them, they see existence as a gift. There are many souls out there who will never get to experience the positive aspects of life - or the negative. 

When you live a short life, you appreciate the time you have. Every day is a gift - and a resource. It is an opportunity for you to do something meaningful, valuable, and worthwhile - whatever that means to you. 

Surely, that’s a good thing. 

So, would you choose to live indefinitely?