Your Death is Begging You to Live: A Powerful Perspective on Life Choices

This past weekend, I celebrated a birthday.  People don’t share their age, but I’m happy to say that I’ve been blessed with many years, but believe I have many to go, though perhaps not as many as already lived. 

That gives me cause to stop and reflect, really think about where I put my efforts.  This reflection has informed some of my seemingly crazy decisions lately.

I was listening to a podcast over the weekend with Mel Robbins. She was interviewing Alua Arthur who is a death doula. She made an interesting point: we should evaluate your decisions based on the perspective of our death.  Here is the  quote, “Our deaths are practically begging us to live. When I’m thinking about my death, I can see very clearly who I want to be.” When we think about our lives from the perspective of the end, it builds courage to do things that may be a little scary.

When I announced my intent to leave the Corporate life, and ADM in particular,  a lot of people told me that they commended my “brave” choice. I started to think “brave” was a euphemism for “stupid” or “foolhardy”. I made that  choice based on my goals: what I want to accomplish with my one life. The realization that we have only one life, and we don’t get “do-overs” should help us lean in and invest that one life to what matters. We can evaluate each decision on the basis of how that decision will help us achieve our life goals, so that our deaths would be proud of the life we’ve lived.

To be clear, I did not make my decision in a vacuum, it was in line with my spouse, my family, my financial standing, and my plan, which we started to put in place much earlier in my career.

So when you have decisions to make such as ,”Should I take this job?” “Should I go back to school”? “Should I ask for a promotion”? “Should I make a career shift”? “Should I start investing now”? All these questions can be answered from the lens of who you are, and who you want to be.  

Some of you joined me at home for my birthday celebration, and I was so grateful to have your company. I am not great at entertaining, perhaps because I never had the time.  What was so cool about our gathering was the diversity present, we laughed together and we learned together, enjoying one another’s company. Old Camille would have had a quiet evening, but old Camille would have lost out on the laughter, the learning and the connection. I used this birthday weekend to evaluate what I want to accomplish and who I want to be in this next phase of my life. I encourage you to do the same. We have only one life.

“What will you do differently to LIVE better today, to go for your goals without hesitation so your death will be proud of you”?

Camille B.

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