Who Do You Want to Be When You Die?
July 27th, 2005 by Steve Pavlina
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“How shall we live?” is a challenging question. But an interesting variation is to ask: What kind of person do you want to be when you die?
When I think about the kind of person I want to be when I die, the question that is most pressing to me is this: Did I do my best?
To me this means two things: 1) Given my current strengths and weaknesses, knowledge and skills, and internal and external resources, do I consider myself at this moment to be the best human being I am capable of being? 2) Am I making the best contribution I am capable of making with my life?
Those two questions have helped me handle the mortality conundrum. They account for the possibility that I could die at any time and for the fact that much of life is outside my control. I feel I can die at peace with myself if I can answer yes to these questions.
Whenever my life reaches the point where I cannot honestly answer yes to both questions, I know I’m off track. And by probing into why I fail these tests, it becomes clear to me what I must change in order to restore the yes.
Whenever I can answer yes, I know I am at peace with the possibility of death at any time. And to me this translates into a feeling of being at peace with life itself.
At this particular moment, I feel I can honestly answer yes. But I also know that at many times in the past I’ve had to answer no. And most likely at some point in the future, I’ll find myself again answering no. When that happens I will have lost my sense of peace and will once again need to summon the courage necessary to regain it.
“Doing your best” is not a static destination. It’s an ongoing journey. Sometimes you’ll lose the path on your own. Other times you’ll be thrown from the path by forces outside your control. Either way it can be difficult to return to the what you feel is your very best path, especially if you’ve been away from it for so long.
In any situation the greatest good you can do is your best. I believe that when you know you are doing your best, regardless of what happens to you that is beyond your control, you will be able to retain a pervasive sense of inner peace. You can ask for nothing more than to be doing your very best at this particular moment in time. If you have that, you want for nothing. And if you want for nothing, the natural consequence is peace.
July 27th, 2005 at 4:45 am
Hi Steve,
I’ve been reading your blogs for the past few weeks; the writings are eye openers. Even though my comment is not directly related to this, so far, on the spiritual side, I see much traces of your writings from Hinduism’s teachings.
I saw in one of your earlier posts that you practice-to-learn many religions. May be you’d like to practice Hinduism as well, if not done already. IMHO there is so much synergy across all these religions, overlaping with each other in their teachings.
Keep up the good work.
July 27th, 2005 at 5:59 am
>> You can ask for nothing more than to be doing your very best at this particular moment in time. If you have that, you want for nothing. And if you want for nothing, the natural consequence is peace.
Often we are not very much at peace even while doing our best, unless we get results out of it. The feelings associated with ‘not meeting the goals’ create a lot of negativity. Comments ??
July 27th, 2005 at 6:08 am
Morning Steve,
As a Buddhist, I engage in a sort of mortality practice. The reason many Buddhist schools think a lot about death is not because they are “sad”, but because thinking about your moment of death, feeling it as real, calmly accepting you will be gone at some point, makes you live this life more mindfully.
it’s not something you see discussed in Western self help lit, because I guess we Americans want to live forever and don’t want to think about the fact we don’t. But I advocate not only asking yourself the questions you propose, but even meditating on death…. imagining you are gone…. feeling what it feels like to lose your body. My own work in self development only began seriously when I almost died. There is no reason to wait for a life threatening event to start to take life seriously. Meditating on your own death is done for that purpose.
I know it sounds creepy at first consideration, but what could be more motivating than knowing you don’t have all the time in the world. Your life is limited. You can accept that joyfully and get to living, or you can try not to think about it.
Buddha’s last words were basically along the lines of, “Work it out for yourself, in your own way, now, in this life. Don’t waste time.”
July 27th, 2005 at 6:11 am
Hi Steve,
“Given my current strengths and weaknesses, knowledge and skills, and internal and external resources, do I consider myself at this moment to be the best human being I am capable of being?”
The ” Given my current strengths and weaknesses” part is confusing. being lazy may be one of my current weaknesses. That does not mean I can take it as a ‘given’ in evaluating the best I can be. Why should anything that I can improve on be a ‘given’ ?
July 27th, 2005 at 7:16 am
Hello Steve,
I’ve greatly enjoyed following the development of your blog and the growing depth of your reflections on purpose and journey.
Today’s post caused me to reflect on two things. First, that for me (perhaps thanks to a puritanical midwestern upbringing) I want to push on my boundaries and improve myself all the time. Consequently, I get frustrated at others around me who are willing to shoot the breeze and be laid back. I’ve done a bit better at this by trying to keep in mind that relationships with others are important and necessary, and that some breeze may need shot. But, I often feel that I’m not being my authentic self because dammit, I have things that need doing. Or maybe I’m just not any fun?
Second (and a close corollary to the first) is that I often feel frustrated with others around me who don’t seem to have the same committment to progress that I do. I think this impatience sometimes comes across to others, in spite of my attempts to try to be “cool.”
This has come to a forefront lately because I’m newly single, and feel like many of the people I meet socially are squandering their time and energy–even though some of these people hold high-powered jobs, and have many of the outer trappings of success.
July 27th, 2005 at 7:41 am
A great piece for discussion!
I think the two questions contradict each other, since answering “yes” to the second question means that you think you are “going the right way”, while answering “yes” to the first question means that you think you are “already there”.
If anything, I would venture to say that the second question (which I am trying to frequently ask to myself) is much more important than the first, since, as everyone here knows, it is not important where you are, it is only important where you are going.
Now, I also have an off-topic question. I feel really guilty asking it, but here goes:
When this site switched from full-text posts to intro-only posts you said you were carrying an experiment related to the traffic. You have said the experiment would continue for about a week. Now, after the week has passed, could I ask what results did you get and, more importantly, whether or not you are going to return to full-text posts?
July 27th, 2005 at 9:08 am
Steve, I agree with your goal “Did I do the best I could?”. The best for me is for people to see my actions and conclude from them that the god of the bible is great.
“So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” Corinthians 10.31
In the past I’ve focused on actions, but now I think the key is to experience his greatness more and more for myself. Then my actions will naturally reflect it.
July 27th, 2005 at 10:32 am
@Accel: Full text feeds have been restored.
@Kamal: Weaknesses are a present given, not necessarily a future given. The best you can be at this moment in time must account for your weaknesses too. But the best you can be at some future moment has more possibilities.
@Vishal: External results are fleeting and can never be a source of peace or security. Becoming attached to external events like results may be common, but it’s also very unproductive. Better to base your security on what lies within you than what lies without.
July 27th, 2005 at 12:12 pm
Instead of this question, I have always in all of my decisions on how to live tried to think of a very similar but different question. What is the end result?
The focus of Steve’s thoughts of mortality still seem to be centered around how much peace you feel during this life. Example: If you’re not happy with who you are when you die, then you’re not at peace during this life. But what’s really the end result?
Under the assumption that we’re mortal, if you live a life full of peace and reach the peak of self actualization and are content at your last breath, what’s the end result? You are still dead. All the growth and wisdom and peace you’ve achieved is instantly gone at your last breath. In the same way a man who lives in pure selfishness and self destruction his whole life, when he dies, he’s just as dead as the other man. I don’t see how one is better off than the other, because they both no longer exist.
This is one of the reasons I feel so strongly that self made morals, goals and religions to follow during this life are useless in the end. I follow Christ who promises eternal life. If I live a life of service and faith in this life and die, and then I’m proven wrong, that there is no eternal life, that it was all just a myth, then I am still just as dead as the man who didn’t believe. No better, no worse. However, If I’m right, that God does exist and he does reward those who serve him, then I’m rewarded with eternal life and the man who rejected it is punished with eternal death.
Anyway, didn’t mean to get too far off topic but this post reminded me of why you even get up in the morning. Too many people it seems just live because they’ve always been living, and do whatever comes natural to them, because they’ve always done so, and never really think about the very real fact that they will die one day sooner than they think.
July 29th, 2005 at 7:52 am
> Full text feeds have been restored.
Woohoo! Now I can store your posts for future reference without lifting a finger - once again. Thanks a lot!
July 30th, 2005 at 8:36 am
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