We are all going to die?

A friend sent me an Instagram meme that started said:

I think every work meeting should start out like this: "Hey, we're all gonna die, and none of this really matters. So let's keep that in mind before anybody gets too worked up in here."

I found it really funny . While it's so true, painfully true, uncomfortably true, the kind of true that makes you stare at your calendar invite titled “Alignment Sync v3 Final Final” and wonder how we all got here. We can also allow the laughter fade into realizing that we can just rest in the fact that this knowledge alone should lower the volume on a lot of nonsense-- the dramatic email threads, the performative urgencies, the faux emergencies, the meetings about meetings. Knowing the ending helps us loosen our grip. We could stop clutching every opinion like it is oxygen. We could stop treating mild inconveniences like a personal attack. And ironically our mortality could become some fantastic stress reducer. Isn't that crazy?

Okay, okay, see...this same fact that makes things feel lighter also gives them weight. Because we are going to die, this meeting actually matters. Not in the cosmic sense of the universe noticing your Q4 roadmap. It matters in the small, human sense. You showed up. I showed up. Other people showed up. This slice of time is unrepeatable. Once it passes, it is gone forever. That is not nothing. We have to be able to see first and foremost that we are really going to die, so we can't take anything too serious. At the same time, because we are all going to die, then thinking about our finite—the finite nature of our finite self—then we should take things very seriously. We should take everything seriously. The strange balance is holding both truths at the same time. Nothing matters in the grand scheme. This matters deeply right now.

Mortality does not give us permission to disengage. It gives us a reason to show up cleanly. We can take things lightly, not inflate them and still not turn every task into a referendum on our worth. We can laugh more, breathe more, cancel the drama where possible. Also, we can take things seriously. Prepare. Pay attention. Care about the people in front of us. Treat time like the limited resource it is. Because it is.

So yes, maybe every meeting should start with a reminder that we are all going to die. It would calm everyone down. But maybe it should end with another reminder: we are still here. For now. And this moment is the only one we get.