it is not the things we do in life
that we regret on our deathbed,
it is the things we do not.
We don't beat the reaper
by living longer,
we beat the reaper by living well
and living fully,
for the reaper will come for all of us.
The question is what do we do
between the time were born
and the time he shows up.
You can't connect the dots looking forward;
you can only connect them looking backwards.
So you have to trust that the dots
will somehow connect in your future.
You have to trust in something,
your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.
Because believing that the dots will connect
down the road
will give you the confidence to follow your
heart
even when it leads you off the well worn path,
and that will make all the difference.
And you will need to find your passion.
Many of you have already done it,
many of you will later
many of you may take till your 30s or 40s
but don't give up on finding it,
right because then all you're doing is waiting
for the reaper.
Sometimes life hits you in the head with a
brick.
Don't lose faith.
I'm convinced that the only thing that kept
me going
was that I loved what I did.
You've got to find what you love.
And that is as true for your work
as it is for your lovers.
Your work is going to fill a large part of
your life,
and the only way to be truly satisfied
is to do what you believe is great work.
And the only way to do great work is to love
what you do.
If you haven't found it yet,
keep looking and don't settle.
As with all matters of the heart,
you'll know when you find it.
And, like any great relationship,
it just gets better and better
as the years roll on.
So keep looking. Don't settle.
Find your passion and follow it
and if there is anything I have learned in
my life you
will not find that passion in things
and you will not find that passion in money
because the more things and the more money
you have
the more you will just look around
and use that as the metric
and there will always be someone with more.
For the past 33 years,
I have looked in the mirror
every morning and asked myself:
"If today were the last day of my life,
would I want to do
what I am about to do today?"
And whenever the answer has been "No"
for too many days in a row,
I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon
is the most important tool I've ever encountered
to help me make the big choices in life.
Because almost everything,
all external expectations, all pride,
all fear of embarrassment or failure -
these things just fall away in the face of
death,
leaving only what is truly important.
Remembering that you are going to die
is the best way I know
to avoid the trap of thinking
you have something to lose.
You are already naked.
There is no reason
not to follow your heart.
No one wants to die.
Even people who want to go to heaven
don't want to die to get there.
And yet
death is the destination we all share.
No one has ever escaped it.
And that is as it should be,
because death is very likely
the single best invention of Life.
Your time is limited,
so don't waste it living someone else's life.
Don't be trapped by dogma
which is living with the results of other
people's thinking.
Don't let the noise of others' opinions
drown out your own inner voice.
And most important,
have the courage to follow your heart and
intuition.
They somehow already know
what you truly want to become.
Everything else is secondary.
Because when he shows up
it's too late to do all the things
that you're always going to kind of get around
to
Stay hungry, stay foolish.
