Life is a gift with strings attached.
Life gives you the beauty of love, friendship and mere joy of existence. But it requires you to go through the pain, anxiety and despair to know that nothing is permanent – not even your existence.
I will die one day. (So will you, by the way.)
Death scares me. I still get panic attacks thinking about it.
But there is also some poetic beauty to death.
Death is the greatest equalizer. Whether you are rich or poor, smart or stupid, mature or immature, fearless or fearful of death, death is our common fate. That gives me hope. Because I stopped believe there’s a superior human sub-spices that can do what I cannot. I have the ability to succeed as much as successful people do.
Death is the boundary of life. Just like any other resources, it’s easy to take life for granted if there’s unlimited supply for it. Death as a boundary helps me think clearer about what I want to do with my life. That actually started a spark in me to dive into startups – I simply cannot afford to live my life going through the average routine of study-work-marry-work-die. There’s more to life than that.
If Death is the master, Time is its cruel and faithful worker – slowly pulling me towards Death. It doesn’t wait, it doesn’t show any mercy no matter how hard I begged, how hard I cried, how much I’ve despaired.
There’s no time-out, time is still running out.
So how should I live?
I choose to live proud with no regrets. So when I finally meet Death at his throne, I’ll tilt my head to a cocky smirk, pat Death on his head and say,
“You’ve worked hard to earn me, bitch”.
Elisha Tan is the founder of Learnemy. Learnemy is an online marketplace where you can find in-person classes taught by local experts and enthusiasts in Singapore.
