For 33 years Steve Jobs will look at himself…

For 33 years Steve Jobs will look at himself in the mirror each morning and ask himself if that day was the last day of his life whether he would be happy with what he was going to do.

— from The Landing (Death) · Chatter, the voice in our head, why it matters and how to Harness it by Ethan Kross

In the book

For thirty-three years he looked at himself in the mirror and asked: if today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do? He was strangely calm about his own illness and yet he never stopped raging against the dying of the light — he celebrated each day and took from it, large and small, the measures of happiness that gave him the strength to keep flying. Others have put the same instrument into a single breath. […] His acceptance was never half-hearted; it was a full and generous yes to death, and through it, to life. Ask the morning question. Borrow Jobs's mirror, or our own tradition's habit of taking honest stock at the start and the close of each day, and ask whether the way you are about to spend this day is the way you would want to have spent it. Keep your judgment clear of your appetites. The Stoics warned that our capacity to enjoy what we are actually given is wrecked by two faults — letting our emotions run loose, and paying too little attention to what is right in front of us. — The Landing (Death)

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