Life does not pause to remind you that it…
Life does not pause to remind you that it is running out. The only one who can keep you mindful of that is you. It will cause no commotion to remind you of a swiftness, but glide on quietly What will be the outcome question You have been preoccupied whole life has hate wildlife hastings on. Meanwhile death will arrive and you have no choice in making yourself available for that. If you fail to grasp life, it will elude you. If you do grasp it, it will elude you anyways. So you must follow it and you must drink quickly as though from a rapid screen that will not always flow. Knowing that his remaining life was not of great length He says I tried to arrest the speed of its flight by the speed with which I grasp it The shorter my possession of life, the deeper and fuller I must make it. When I walk alone in the beautiful orchard, if my thoughts have been dwelling on extraneous incidents for some part of the time, for some other part that bring them back to the walk, to the orchard, to the sweetness of the solitude, and to me.
— from The Landing (Death) · How to Live by Sarah Bakewell
In the book
Life will never interrupt you to announce that it is running out. It makes no commotion; it simply glides on quietly, and the only one who can keep you mindful of its swiftness is you. So we postpone. — The Landing (Death)
And life does you no favor here — it does not pause to remind you that it is running out. It makes no announcement, sounds no alarm; it simply glides on quietly, and the only one who can keep you mindful of its swiftness is you. You can earn another dollar. […] That is its whole cruelty and its whole gift. It will not warn you, so you must be the one who stays awake to it — not anxiously, not morbidly, but tenderly, the way you would treasure anything you knew you could not keep. Do not waste your hours, and do not then waste more of them grieving the ones you wasted; regret for lost time is only more lost time, and the cure is always the same — to spend the next hour well. — Time