The Last 52 Years. This Moment.

All the matters I worry so about are just technique and derivative. The real issue to concern myself with is whether I can die right now without regrets, feeling my life has been enough.

The question is not how long I have gone on. The question is not whether I have sucked all the juice I could out of life. The question is: In the time remaining after seeing the importance of the question, has the life I lived measured up to a good life by my own standards?

What I did before this realization is irrelevant water under the bridge. What matters is: If I die ten seconds from now, will I be able to be at peace with the way I spent those last seconds? That's the only question truly worth worrying about. But if I spend the next ten seconds worrying, all will be lost.

To remain at peace with oneself is the only thing that matters. Everything else - whether one is living in the street, whether people like you, whether you have discovered the "meaning of life," even whether God loves you - are questions for superficial people. What matters most to the person of substance and wisdom is not, "Do I have a job," or "Where is my next meal coming from," or "Why is life kicking me in the head." What matters most to the Sage is, "Am I doing right by my own deepest values in this moment - or will I die three seconds from now having let myself down.  Will I spend my last moments having betrayed all that was dearest to me?"  Did I learn my lesson?

To the extent that I don't know what I want my life to mean in this moment, I am an ignoramus.

That is all there is to wisdom. The rest is mere technique.

Every crisis in life therefore demands an immediate come-to-Jesus moment. Can I truly make the best of this situation, be at peace with how it affects me and how I affect it - or do I take action to change things RIGHT NOW so I am not betraying myself? (The best such action perhaps being to wait).

That is all there is to practical action decisions. All else is derivative.

Yet we live and learn. And we compromise when necessary. We will all fail ourselves again and again. Live not in regret, for that is another failure. Live only in ruthless determination to be the person you want to be from now on. Any moment could be your last.

No one accepts fully that any moment could be her last. Hence, no one truly lives without regrets. Only those facing death squarely in the eyes every moment - with all the terror this implies - ever live a moment genuinely free from terror. In the rest of us, terror lives just under the surface. Morbid panic raises its destructive head whenever we become uncertain, confused, put upon, or face other trials.

Who can live at peace with terrifying truth every moment of their lives? Only those who know what they value and who don't betray those values. Alas, if one's highest value is life itself, one betrays that value the moment one dies. Then all is lost. That's why only the life well lived, the moment of complete integrity to oneself, remains an accomplishment throughout one's existence. Any old bacteria can cling tenaciously to life.

Animals with nervous systems have options. Animals with free will have responsibilities. The Sage chooses to fulfill her obligations to her own highest values. Only then can she say at the end of her life "I have been honest with myself all the way down. I may have made mistakes, I may have chosen unwisely or even immorally at times, but once I realized how trivial suffering is in comparison to being at peace in one's soul, I acted accordingly."

As Pablo Picasso said, "Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone."

Words to live and die by.