Of your 80-ish years alive, only 15 are truly yours.
- Sleeping — 27 years
- Working — 11 years
- Cooking and eating — 6 years
- Commuting or stuck in traffic — 5 years
- Running errands and doing administrative BS — 4 years
- Personal care and household chores — 3 years
- Being an infant or toddler — 3 years
- School — 3 years
- Sick in bed — ~1 year
- On the damn toilet — 1 year
That’s 64 years gone.
So how do you make sure the 15 years you control are spent on what actually matters?
By running everything you do through The Immortality Test.
The Immortality Test is a concept drawn from the work of philosopher Ernest Becker.
It asks:
“Will what I’m doing matter when I’m gone?”
If the answer is yes, it’s purposeful. If it’s a no, then it’s probably not.
The Immortality Test reveals that the most meaningful things we do are rarely about us—they’re actually about the things that outlive us.
Meanwhile, things like status, materialism, or refreshing your Instagram For You page fail The Immortality Project Test. They won’t matter one iota when you’re feeding the worms.
As Pablo Picasso once said:
“The purpose of life is to find your gift,
but the meaning of life is to give it away.”
