I’ve already died.
I mean there are multiple moments in my life that probabilistically could have been the end.
But here I am; privileged to share these thoughts, obligated to be alive.
As a 3-year old I faced a 33% of death by the age of eight. I grew up a lifetime’s worth during those five years. But it was fine because I’m here to write about it.
As a teenager in Italy, I followed the bravest idiot and jumped off a 40-foot cliff into the sea. I knew how to tread water but not much more. I didn’t check the tide tables or scout the landing. I didn’t throw a rock to test the depth, but I saw the others resurface; so I just went. I can feel the arc of my descent even now; a brief weightlessness followed by the slap of concrete air on my skin. I lodged a small pebble in my heel that I put up with for a few months but it was fine because I’m here to write about it. I didn’t over analyze the set of possible outcomes, which included doesn’t come back up; I just went.
In my twenties I went skydiving. It’s statistically safe, the instructor said so before requiring my signature on forms indicating the prospect of my death and my waiver of their liability. Jumping from a plane might be safer than driving on I-95 at 2 am, but certainly less so than drinking a coffee while I write this. Anyway I’m fine; and here.
Two years ago I spent a night in the E.R., convinced I was dying: an extreme panic attack. But it’s fine now, I’m here.
But …
… calling it “fine” undermines the branch I happened to take on the tree of outcomes.
These are four scenes among many in my life, which brings me to the line that sits at the center of this essay: I can tell you, in my life, I have died more than a dozen times. If it sounds bombastic, try it on your own life. Your backpacking detours, the winter roads you skidded off, the medical scares that turned out to be nothing for you until they weren’t for someone else. Count the junctions you passed through where a second’s shift would have led you down a more sinister tree branch …
The aggregate math is not on immortality’s side. And yet: it’s fine because you’re here.
So what follows? If we have already “died”, now what?
For me, two things.
First, humility. It’s a cosmopolitan self-deceit to believe we deserve to be spared - once, twice, but a dozen times? Survivorship isn’t a merit badge; rather it’s an outcome. I’m trying to acknowledge it with gravity while also holding it lightly to keep my ego in check.
Second, and more importantly, a different relationship to time. As I reflect on how many exit ramps I’ve already blown past, I realize I don’t need to live with such a high-time-preference (i.e. immediate gratification). I’m trying to live in a way that compounds meaning instead of hoarding experiencing. I am reassigning my anxiety about the future to attention towards the present.
There’s also a behavioral finance analogy here. We obsess over drawdowns yet often ignore recurring dividends. We hedge for tail risk more frequently than we buy calls on the relationships that might pay outsized returns. I’m learning to say NO without apology. Putting words on paper has a larger expected value than a hundred hours of anxious optimization.
This isn’t an invitation to recklessness. If I’ve already died, why not double down on risk? Because the point is not to become numb to risk; it’s to see it more clearly. My cliff jump and the skydive weren’t proofs of invincibility; they were proofs of living. Risk is everywhere, including: procrastination, resentment, pride and cowardice. Now if I’m going to be risky, I want it to be in service of something I’m proud to have tried. The only judgement that matters to me is mine.
A morning coffee with someone I love matters more to me now that I’ve been pruning the branches of the tree that didn’t or don’t seem to include it.
Dear reader,
Whether you prefer fate or statistics, through grace and inference we arrive at the same conclusion. Your survival rate is 100% so far. Allocate your attention to the activities with the best expected meaning, not just the lowest perceived variance.
Enjoy the ride, but actually steer.
Love,
Me
P.S.
Homework: What is one small way you can lower your time preference today? What is one conversation not worth postponing another day? What one practice might you compound? What is one apology you’ll stop rehearsing and actually make?
