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Articles

Happiness, Death & the Remainder of Life

Laurence Goldstein conducts a little thought experiment.

A notice I once saw pinned to an office wall read ‘Nobody on their deathbed ever said “Gee, I wish I had spent more time in the office!”.’ Unlike most aphorisms which attempt to tell you, in a sentence, how to live your life, this one is quite profound. It makes the obvious point that being a slave to work may not be the best way to maximize one’s happiness. But, more important, it suggests that the right time to learn this lesson is now, not on the day that one dies.

The fact that we shall die is one of the few things of which we can be certain, and acknowledgment of this fact ought to figure in many of our decisions — including, prominently, our decisions about how to spend the remainder of our lives.

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