Tragedy of birth

We refer to Romeo and Juliet as a tragic love story.

What I saw was two degenerate teenagers. What I think is a real tragedy is the life that unfolds the minute after our birth. Some may argue it's a miracle. I see that. The tragedy hits the minute after. 

Why is it a tragedy? 

Well, once you're born there is one forecast you can make with 100% accuracy. A guarantee. 

Death. 

You will die. Guaranteed. But that isn't all. 

Every living being you've invested time into and loved will also die. You will either witness it or become a cause of grief to them with your own death. That is, if you've lived a life worth being missed by someone. 

Such is what happens when you exist in this world.

This is in my no means me trying to burst your bubble; quite the contrary. With knowledge of such tragedy it would seem almost comical not to make the most out of your existence.

Stoics commonly use the latin phrase: "Memento Mori", Remember that you will die. To embrace what you should do whilst alive. 

Ignoring what is obviously ahead of you is like choosing to be blind. Some may not even be ignoring it but may actually be forecasting that they have an eternity of time. Either way, both are utterly foolish. Once you choose to embrace mortality, you can take ownership of the choices you are making everyday. With every decision you make you make a choice to forgo something for the other. 

A possible framework is the regret minimization framework. It has a clear purpose: to minimize the total amount and/or magnitude of regret you'll have when you or those you love ends their journey in this world.

I do not believe one can live a life with no regrets. Even Jeff Bezos uses a regret minimization framework. Not a regret elimination framework. This guy is the wealthiest man in the world with arguably one of the largest influences on the world. So take comfort in the fact that even he will probably have regrets when he dies. 

This framework is nothing new. But I think it takes on a more worthwhile meaning once you embrace mortality. 

I personally like to layer this framework by also asking myself if any decision I'm making will get me closer to my desired end-state. FYI, this means you'd better have done some introspection to have some idea of what you want your end state to look like.  I mean, if you'd rather have your grave stone say: "John Doe. He went with the flow until he didn't recognize where he even was" then yeah forget what you read here. But if you'd like the tragedy of your life to have some meaning then consider making decisions with the end in mind. 

To begin with, if you were to die in the next 72 hours how much of what you'd done would you be satisfied with?