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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.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed
a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost
certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months.
My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It
means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few
months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It
means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down
my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from
the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a
microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is
curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.

This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I get for a few more decades.
Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but
purely intellectual concept:

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. It is life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.
Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared
away.

Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

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 other’s 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.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called the Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of
the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park,
and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960’s, before personal computers and
desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like
google in paperback form, 35 years before google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools
and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of the whole earth catalog, and then when it had run its
course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final

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