We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only have one.
Confucius
I give credit to this quote for a lot of things. For one, the creative pursuit over the financial.
There was a poster I bought a while ago which served its purpose for the 2-ish years I kept it. It was an interactive poster, one which you filled in dots for each week of your life. The whole poster had about 88 years worth of weeks in it. The point was that you were supposed to use it to live your life to the fullest; carpe diem as it’s said.
Before I decided the tool had reached its maximum usefulness, I wrote this quote right at the top to remind myself that all our days are numbered. At the time I was also reading Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks – a book quite literally about making the most out of life by embracing its finitude and rejecting this fixation on “getting things done,” a most futile arrangement.
What made this time impactful was not just the tools I was using, or the quotes I was choosing to live by, but also the fact that it was the summer before turning forty–a trying time most of us over the age can attest.
Living by this quote is not something that comes easy day to day. There are days which I struggle to embrace the details of my pursuits, and rush the process to completion. Taking a moment to zoom out on such pursuits gives me a good laugh–there is no one forcing me to do anything. I am self-employed, I coach people for a living. The one-on-one coaching is what pays for the lifestyle my family and I so enjoy. All other pursuits are in the build-phase. Entrepreneurs know this; that means they’re not making any money. I have to remind myself that I can throw these projects in the trash any time working on them becomes too much, or that taking a break effects exactly no one. This is the fun part. This is the part that I get to enjoy, before there are employees depending on the success of the business.
Our second life does in fact begin when we realize we only have one. Make the your second life about the journey, not the destination.
Nardis Prose 
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