You can’t want nothing. You can’t strive to be selfless. Because even wanting nothing means you want something. There may be no right answer here.

All that matters are the children we’ve raised and the journals we’ve written.

What would you like to know about your parents, and what would you like your children to know about you?

You’re not “living your life” – you’re building a legacy. Make sure it’s something that contributes positively for generations to come.

And your legacy doesn’t have to be something grand or expansive. It can be something simple – like “my grandfather taught me to read and write and draw. He always said ‘Reading helps you understand the world, writing helps you learn the language and explain the world to others, and drawing helps you accurately observe and appreciate the world around you.'”

You don’t have to leave behind a billion dollars and a research foundation to leave behind a legacy. All you have to do is leave some guideposts for living well and selflessly and kindly and generously.

People capable of climbing ladders have a moral obligation to make sure the ladder is strong enough for those climbing behind. So.. climb with tools. Repair as you go.

Death isn’t nothing. It isn’t the absence of everything. It’s greedy. Selfish. Hungry. Oblivious. Inevitable. And one-way. But death drives life, the same way black holes drive galaxies. The inevitable one-way oblivious power of black holes is death incarnate, death made tangible in our universe. It swallows everything and gives nothing back.

Life will always, successfully and relentlessly, march you to your death, but you can choose to make plans, good choices, and thoughtful actions, and outrun the whip at your back. And running hard and fast is easier with someone you trust and can count on at your side.

Today I am four years – 48 months! – away from 60 years old. Here’s a few tips.

Don’t squander the time you’re gifted. You don’t know how much you’ve got, and you’ll lose it whether or not you’re paying attention, so pay attention. You will run out of time whether you are playing video games or saving lives, so save lives. (I’m using that as an extreme example – many of us can’t be out there saving lives, but we can all contribute meaningfully.)

Eat right and exercise. It doesn’t guarantee good health, but it greatly improves your odds. Also, like the firemen waiting for the bell, we don’t really care what they do in their downtime, as long as they are 150% ready when the bell rings. Remember that people you love count on you, so be ready if the bell rings – as healthy and strong as you can be – and a friend needs help moving, or your mom needs help changing a car tire, or you have stay up all night in a hospital waiting room.

Pay attention to the world around you, not the highlight reel on your phone. This is self-explanatory. Thanks for reading this (I get the irony here) but a highlight reel isn’t created without 10 times the number of outtakes. The thing is, outtakes and bloopers are NOT the product of the highlight reel – the highlight reel is the product of hours and hours of outtakes and bloopers.

Acquiring knowledge and experience, not money, is all that matters, BUT IT ONLY MATTERS IF YOU SHARE IT. Hoarding what you learn is just as bad as hoarding money.

But here’s where I have to contradict myself a little bit – save money. Like time, you never know when you won’t have any. But unlike time, you can bank money to ease those dry spells, and there will be dry spells, and someday you will be too old or sick or feeble to earn money, or people you love will need it more than you and you’ll wish you could give some to them. So spend a little, save a lot.

If where you are in life doesn’t match where you think you should be, and you are doing nothing about it, you’re living in a petri dish of resentment and entitlement. Be OK with who, what, and where you are, or be the change. But if you change nothing, nothing will change.

This is a grossly incomplete list, but it’s a start. Also, I tried prioritizing these ideas, but couldn’t think of any one of them being more important than the others. They all matter. Just like people.

Lastly: read, write, draw. Read everything, not just the curated crap you are fed in a timeline, to understand the world around you. Write, so that you can articulate what you understand and to work through what you don’t. Draw, so that you learn to observe the world around you.

I owe my life and whatever gifts I’ve been able to cultivate to my Kathy and my children – Corinne, Thomas, and Chloe. They have all been too kind to me, and I apologize for getting from them so much more than I have given.

But I’m not done yet. At least 48 months left!

Crazy that the thing we seem to value most – life! sweet, joyful, precious life! – is really just a honeypot, designed to distract.

As a species, we culturally fail to think long term, beyond our own lifetimes. We’re reveling in the beauty of sunsets and rainbows and cat videos, numb to the constant white noise of time flowing over us, eroding us. We think we’re stone, but we’re really the gouged out scar left by a slow-moving, unstoppable, insidious glacier.

The things we love distract us from seeing that life is a mask worn by death.

The fight against our doubt-fueled inertia saps our strength and holds us back from making positive progress. These are strong chains, but chains we can break with courage and fortitude and encouragement from those we love.

“Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.” W Shakespeare