Nothing Focuses The Mind Like The Ultimate Deadline: Death

This reminds me of the Hagakure:

The Way of the Samurai is found in death. When it comes to either/or, there is only the quick choice of death. It is not particularly difficult. Be determined and advance. To say that dying without reaching one's aim is to die a dog's death is the frivolous way of sophisticates. When pressed with the choice of life or death, it is not necessary to gain one's aim. We all want to live. And in large part we make our logic according to what we like. But not having attained our aim and continuing to live is cowardice. This is a thin dangerous line. To die without gaining one's aim is a dog's death and fanaticism. But there is no shame in this. This is the substance of the Way of the Samurai. If by setting one's heart right every morning and evening, one is able to live as though his body were already dead, he gains freedom in the Way. His whole life will be without blame, and he will succeed in his calling.

Sometimes I trick my mind into thinking I will die if I don't do a certain thing. This can be a good motivator, but can lead to unnecessary anxiety if not used in moderation. Also, it only works as well as you trick yourself into believing it. I've noticed a marked increase in my abilities to focus and in my quickness when I use this method during a game or something similar. I figure I am leveraging the high value placed on survival which has been cultivated via evolution, using it to enhance my mental acuity and awareness such that I might 'survive'.

Always being anxious about living life to the fullest can be stressful and thus counterproductive to the idea of living a happy life. I find that people are often happier when they aren't afraid to "waste time" doing simple things like sitting on a bench and talking to friends while life goes by.

I made something very similar to this watch a while back for the homepage of my website (http://kronopath.net/). It's a seven-handed clock, with the longest three hands being your typical second, minute, and hour hands, but with each of the shorter hands taking longer to make a full cycle than the last. The shortest hand will finish its rotation when I turn 80, which is a (very loose) estimate for how long I have to live.

The fact that someone took this same idea and made it into a commercial product is interesting and a bit disconcerting, if only because I wish I'd thought of doing that first. But it's good to have a reminder that you have a very limited time to do whatever it is you want to do. It helps maintain a sense of forward pressure.

And if you need any more motivation, remember that 83 years is only roughly 1000 months long. What are you planning to do this month?

Memento mori — remember that you wil die ⌘ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori

Lost a hacker artist friend this last year to cancer.

Whatever you want to say to someone, experience or build, get to it right now. And repeat every single day.

Also: http://www.ted.com/talks/steve_jobs_how_to_live_before_you_d...

Sitting around thinking about kicking the bucket is just setting expectations. Live in the moment - it's what we all have right this second. This night may be your last. Make the most of it.

A lot of successful people and a number of religions place high value on our ephemerality as a way of focusing on the important things.

In practice, I've found this rather hard to do and a lot of times a putdown as well. I think the concept of your own death is hard to truly fathom. It's the same reason generally heart patients ignore doctor's advice of stop eating crap and exercising more or face death.

A much better workaround I've found was after watching Groundhog Day [1]. In the movie, Bill Murray is stuck in a day where, no matter what he does, the next morning the day starts exactly the same. In that day, it doesn't matter if he dies, kills someone, makes someone fall in love with him, robs a bank; the next day, its the same old day. spoilers The movie then becomes about what if you had just one day (the exact same day) in your life, how would you live that day? A perfect day. One where you do as much good as you can.

I think the movie tries to tackle the same issue of our limited time on earth by taking a rather interesting angle.

By thinking of your day as a groundhog day and wondering, if this day is going to be the same day forever; how best can I live it? For me, this has been a better approach to how I should spend my day rather than waking up and focusing upon my death.

[1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107048/

My only concern is this... If you've convinced yourself your whole life that you're going to die at a certain date will the placebo effect come into play and actually make you die prematurely around that date?

Other than that it works and it works well. I'm 27, the average male lives to age 72, which means I've got 45 years of life left. It's boosted my productivity, helped me focus on the things that matter, helped me manage my fear of what others think of me (I don't care anymore).

My next experiment is to have a countdown timer on my desktop that counts down to my demise. A bit morbid but I've accepted things like this long ago so it's not depressing.

And then I look at my Tikker and see that I've got... like... a $h!tton of numbers left! Yeah, I'm OK, I can do all that stuff later :-)

Seriously, even if it displayed the time left in years, seeing 40 years on the screen will make most people go "Eh, that's enough time for everything".

Fixation on death is pathetic. This infatuation our society has on the inevitable end of life is ridiculous. It obviously makes for great artistic themes, but death does not concern me whatsoever.

I live here and now. Whenever I die, that will be the end of that. But I don't care for it. If you're so obsessive about marking and reminding people about the end of their days, then I advise that you be the first to go.

Worst product idea ever.