Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something... — Steve Jobs

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.

Author: Steve Jobs

Insight: Most of us live as though we have endless do-overs. We turn down the job that excites us because it feels risky. We stay quiet in meetings. We choose the safe path, gripping tightly to what we've built, terrified of losing it. But here's the thing: we're going to lose it all anyway. Not in some depressing sense, but in the most literal, unavoidable sense. That knowledge isn't supposed to make you nihilistic—it's supposed to free you. When you actually sit with your own mortality, something shifts. The imaginary stakes you've been defending turn out to be much smaller than they felt. You realize you've already got nothing to protect because impermanence is the baseline. This doesn't mean recklessness; it means clarity. You stop making decisions based on phantom fears of judgment or failure. You start asking what actually matters to you, what you'd regret not trying. The paradox is that this seems morbid but it's oddly liberating. The person who's made peace with losing everything often ends up taking smarter risks, not dumber ones. They pursue work they believe in. They speak their mind. They show up more fully because they've stopped spending energy on the illusion of permanent safety.

Source: Stanford University Commencement Address, 2005