If you die tomorrow

Are you ready for it?

Mar 13, 2025

I am ready to die.

A strange thought for a 35-year-old in decent health. But I think it almost every day.

I am ready to die. To leave this earth. Hopefully by surprise.

If tomorrow I get run over by one of those yellow-green electric metro feeder buses on my walk to the gym, board a flight that never arrives, or simply don’t wake up, I’ll be fine.

I am ready.

Ready for death

Before you start worrying: no, I am not suicidal. I’m extremely happy with life, more than I’ve ever been. I’ve accomplished feats beyond my wildest imagination, found a partner who makes me feel so loved, so whole, so seen it’s difficult to believe he wasn’t magicked into being specially for me, and made countless friends who bring me joy and tell me when I’m being an asshat. My life couldn’t be more perfect.

Which is why I’m ready to die.

I think we as a society confuse being ready to die with not wanting to live, assume one cannot be true without the other. This is not the case. At least not for me.

Do I want to live until 100 with my partner, spend our days reading on our stained couch, holding wrinkly hands, sneaking geriatric back hugs at every opening? Absolutely. Do I want to finish my memoir and see it become a mega bestseller and die a filthy rich, famous author? Of course. Being perfectly satisfied with my life doesn’t preclude wanting more. More love, more success, more joy. More life.

But if I were to die tomorrow, it wouldn’t piss me off. I wouldn’t feel like I’m missing out.

This readiness to die is a recent phenomenon. Though I am no stranger to picturing myself rushing in front of a speeding car, jumping off the platform as a train pulls in, I wouldn’t say that even in those morbid moments I was ready to die. I was merely indulging my overactive, anxious, catastrophising mind.

But the past five years have blessed my life with extraordinary circumstances, and I am so saturated with happiness that I’m fine with not having more.

For a while now I’ve been ready to die, though I didn’t know it until I’d spent four years watching my dad actively die of cancer, constantly wondering if he’s ready—which as far as I can tell depends on how much pain and hope he feels at any given moment.

It was only a matter of time before I’d pose myself the same question—Am I ready to die?—and when I finally did, the answer, swift and resounding, surprised me: Yes.

So if you die tomorrow…

If you die tomorrow, will you be ready?

Will you be proud of all you have achieved?

Will your loved ones know how important they are, have always been?

Will you depart without worry or regret? Leave this world a better place than you found it?

Will you die believing you have led a life well lived?

What a “life well lived” means, only you can define. As for my life well lived, it’s one that has touched others in profound, enriching ways.

That is my newsletter—the fact that you are reading these words and letting them if not shape, then tickle your mind—and my day job helping over a million subscribers of my boss’ newsletter lead better lives. But it’s also a hug for a friend in need, a shared laugh over a delicious meal, a heart emoji to my parents. And I’d like to think those moments alone would have rendered my life well lived. Without the audience, the professional success, any of the exceptional circumstances I’m fortunate to call mine.

Wherever we are in life, whatever distance from the goals we’re striving towards, we are faced with the inevitability of death. We can hope our death be eventual rather than imminent, but this hope is vain. No one is guaranteed one more day.

Not you, not me, not the guy flying 130 kilometres an hour down an empty highway.

To not be ready for a moment that can arrive any second seems, to me, a recipe for misery.

For to fear death is to deny a force we cannot control. And that’s no way to live.

What do you think?

Are you ready to die?

Please hit “reply” or leave a comment—I read every response and I’d love to hear from you. If you want, share this post with someone who cherishes life yet does not fear death.