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Comment by machinerychorus | Hacker News Reader

I think it's exceedingly important to recognize that life is finite, and to reflect upon this regularly. I think its so important that I created an android wallpaper that shows what percentage of your life is already past. This helps me ensure that I'm spending my limited time in the most valuable way possible, and really helps put things in perspective.

App: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.machineryc...

Source code: https://github.com/ethanmdavidson/DeathProgress

This isn't the first time I've shared these links, but I hope it doesn't come across as spammy because 1) I'm not selling anything and 2) articles like this keep getting posted, which implies this is a topic some people are just discovering

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Memento mori may be depressing, but once you embrace it I know no better way to gain the motivation to do the things I truly want with my life.

How many Sunday afternoons with my young children do I get? That's not even about death, just that they will grow up one day soon. How many of them do I want to spend getting paged about some bullshit database problem? Or scrolling mindlessly on my phone?

12 years is what you have with you child, after that parents are far less important to them than their friends.

Sounds like a good reason not to take the pager more than necessary.

People beat themselves up about this a lot. White people love to hate themselves.

Sure, your employer will reward your commitment by laying you off once you're of age, but it doesn't take much to end up estranged from your adult kids despite a lifetime of effort expended there either.

Hold out for grandchildren. It's the fun part of parenting without the responsibilities.

I don't beat myself up about this. Hating myself is why I let myself be abused with obscene on-call for years. Respecting myself and deciding what I cared about in life is what allowed me to quit that job, even though it was secure.

I'd keep in mind that 'time left' is a probabilistic estimate, not a guarantee, and probably closer to wishful thinking:

https://vividmaps.com/male-female-population-dying-before-ag...

Tomorrow is not guaranteed - but that recognition doesn't have to be a morbid or depressing viewpoint, it can just as easily be a motivator to stop procrastinating.

Did the same thing as a webpage. Added to home screen on my iPhone.

Source: https://github.com/abhaynayar/mori

Sample: https://abhaynayar.github.io/life-in-weeks.html

I got an eerie feeling setting it up on my phone.

Still not sure if I'll keep it, but like another commenter said, perhaps I'll embrace my percentage and just make the most out of what's left.

Cowardly (or cunningly?) I set the background to pure black like my regular wallpaper and the text to almost-black. So I think I'll forget about the wallpaper and every now and again, the percentage will jump at me late at night. Let's see :)

Thanks for this!

On Kawara is a painter known for his 100 years calendar.

https://bernardol.com/100-years-calendar/about.html

For those close to NY metro area, Beacon DIA is a great museum worth visiting that houses some of Kawara's work.

Depending on one’s character sheet this percentage might still turn out to be overly optimistic.

The app link does not appear to work, also doesn't work in the github readme

Try searching the play store for "Life Perspective Wallpaper"

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