- Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address
If you are the opposite, this advice basically says "stop sacrificing the short term for the long term, and stop working towards difficult but ultimately worthwhile things, and enjoy short term pleasure" which is terrible advice if you do that by habit anyway
It's a suggestion to correct course; to be self-aware; to get over your fears; to ensure you're pursuing things you find worthwhile and believe in; to accept that even for those things you will have days when you don't love them, but to consider a change if that feeling persists.
He goes on to say, “…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”, which is less often quoted but just as important.
The "regrets" sound good, are honey for our eyes and ears. But of course, we reason, they should have—it's always them, not us—thought more about family and less about work, picked up the phone and called their friend, written a note to the family members who had invited them to their wedding anniversary.
In the end, we don't call our friend because we don't feel like it, maybe we tell ourselves that if we weren't so lazy and busy we would do it, as if laziness were an unappealable sentence instead of a choice. We don't change jobs not because we are afraid, but because we make some calculations about trade-offs.
We prefer to spend time at work rather than with the family maybe because the wife or husband has put on forty pounds since the wedding, and children surely are the greatest joy, but if we were to go back in time maybe we wouldn't make them. Plus, if we hadn't worked all those hours, who would have thrown money around the house? How can we be on social media instead of talking to our family members, friends, kids, spouse, some may ask. Maybe we are not just a victim of the times, it is just that we have talked to our friends 1500 times and in our pocket there is a world that engages us, interest us. We would have loved to be more adventurous in expressing our feelings, of course, but we were well aware that those we wanted would never come with us.
We live life now and, apart from some unfortunate fellows, we are not likely to die tomorrow or in one week or in one year. Embarrassment will maybe go away when we are dying, but what about the 10/20/30 years or more between now and then?
I’d argue the opposite. It’s exactly aligned with his stated philosophy. Particularly in how this was influenced by an early LSD experience:
> It reinforced my sense of what was important—creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could.
I don’t think that suggests hedonism or short term pleasure by any means.
Substitute "excited" for any reasonable descriptor. This assumes a certain amount of agency, otherwise it is just depressing that things aren't great and you can't change them.
An individual human existence should be like a river: small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being.
The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death, since the things he cares for will continue. And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, the thought of rest will not be unwelcome. I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.
— Bertrand Russell
That "too many days in a row" is the critical part in this piece of advice in my opinion.
It's the Voldemort rule. (In the story he died ~75ish years old after making himself immortal, where most wizards easily live beyond 100)
* Not literally yet, but probably soon.