Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the saying “You know how much money you have; you never know how much time you have.”
If it’s not obvious, what it means is that you (roughly) know how much money you have – what your paycheque is every two weeks, what your investments are worth, the value of your home or any other assets you own.
But whether your net worth is a thousand or a million bucks, you never know how much time you have left to enjoy your life – if you are close to retirement, if you have a family you want to spend time with, if you’re hoping to develop a small parcel of land in Mexico to live out your golden years while scuba-diving in the ocean.
I’ve always said I think it’s better to die quickly in your sleep then to linger for years in your old age. But sometimes things happen that make me reconsider that – is it better to linger in a nursing home for years into your 90s or die suddenly overnight at age 56?
Maybe dying suddenly isn’t better if you have so much life left in front of you.
Because whether you’re 56 or 96, in the end, life is always too short. And for that reason, it’s not worth it to spend your time being unkind and petty and focused on the wrong things as being meaningful and worth worrying about in the limited time we all have.
RIP Tony – thanks for being a mentor and a friend. Thanks for being endlessly kind and supportive. Thanks for constantly giving me perspective and always being willing to offer a listening ear.
[Edit to add Tony’s obituary.]
“I Don’t Want To Die In The Hospital” – Connor Oberst
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