Chapter Thirty-Four. Nothing to Lose

It wasn’t a surprise when Martin received a C in his first speech class in graduate school. Martin’s intellect, depth, and passion burned bright, but he stuttered and his speech impediment was tripping him up. Then one day, as if by miracle, his speech impediment disappeared. Martin’s friend Harry once asked him about how he was able to leave his stutter behind. Martin explained, “Once I accepted death, I stopped being bedeviled by these things.” Accepting and facing the fact of limited time has a clarifying and cleansing effect. No longer afflicted with a stutter, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. went on to become one of the most famous orators of all time. And accepting death didn’t just improve the way he spoke, but gave him courage to live the life to which he was called and contribute to a higher cause.

In the face of death, the grief of loss can overwhelm. When my friend Todd lost his dad he said, “The sun will never shine the same.” Death does distill, but it can also diminish and overwhelm. When Candy Chang was processing her grief over the death of a close friend, she began asking questions like, “How do I now find joy in the everyday?” and “How can we live the life we have to its fullest degree?” In the face of darkness, questions like these help us begin to see the light. Chang decided to pursue these questions further by creating a small art project to help her process the pain.

WALK AROUND FEELING LIKE A LEAF. KNOW YOU COULD TUMBLE AT ANY SECOND. THEN DECIDE WHAT TO DO WITH YOUR TIME.

— NAOMI SHIHAB NYE

What’s interesting to me about the walls is how collaborative and contagious the project is. Reading someone else’s response makes you want to write your own. And the responses are profound. Had the wall just said, “I want to _____________,” the responses would have been shallow and smug. But by adding the reference to death, the tone takes on a more creative and beautiful form, removing the risk of self-consciousness about what you are going to write. Death is the great equalizer and helps us stop worrying about ourselves. Death reminds us that in the grand scheme of things, all of us, great and small, will meet the same fate.

Chang’s “Before I die....” question reminds us that death can help us dream. The composer Leonard Bernstein once said, “To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time.” Chang’s question helps us with both. It reminds us of both the brevity of life and that we have to get to work chasing our dreams. The sun sets soon, and none of us have enough time. You don’t have enough time. And your time is running out.

Like all of us, you probably feel busy and overwhelmed, but this slice of time is all that you have. You will never have more time than you do right now. The time to live is now. We tend to forget these truths, thinking that we can defer life until another day. Cyril Parkinson explained, “Work swells to the amount of time we give it.” In other words, give a project a week and it will take that long. We give life too much time. Thinking that we have forever, we delay doing what matters most. Squaring off with death reminds us that we do not live by a perpetual clock. And considering your death in the future heightens how you live in the now.

In one scene, the protagonist, English teacher John Keating, leads his students into the hall. He asks his pupils to look at the photographs of past students who have died. Keating asks his students to stare into their eyes. He raises the point that these students are just like them. They too believed they were destined for great things. Their eyes shone with hope. Keating’s students stare in silence. Then he makes his point: “If you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. Listen. Do you hear it? (whispering in a gruff voice) Carpe. Hear it? (whispering) Carpe. Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.”

The entire film hinges upon those two words, carpe diem. This is not an antiquated and innocuous phrase but a call to fight. Seizing the day isn’t a passive phrase. And life is too short to let it slip away. Such inspiration rings true no matter who we are or what our age. We have all been designed to be and to do certain things, but fear holds us back. Let the idea of death help you to overcome. Let it be a fuse that ignites your creative soul. This life is your one wild chance—don’t let it drift away. Stop living a half-lived life. Your time is running out. You will die. Make the most of what you have. Live life to the fullest degree by letting death distill what is most important to you.

DEATH IS OUR FRIEND PRECISELY BECAUSE IT BRINGS US INTO ABSOLUTE AND PASSIONATE PRESENCE WITH ALL THAT IS HERE, THAT IS NATURAL, THAT IS LOVE.

— RAINER MARIA RILKE