<p class="bodytext">That life is transient is well known to all of us. We are born – it would appear only to die. Author Tim Urban has dramatically and with great effect brought out the very finite nature of life. He has in his work The Tail End laid out visually the human lifespan in years, months, weeks, days. You would think that this will not be possible. What Tim Urban has done is to put a dot in a sheet of paper. Each dot representing a certain period-say years or months, or weeks or days. Assume that you are a healthy, lucky person with a life span of 90 years. Even if each dot represents a day, it comfortably fits in a A-4 sheet of paper-and if it each dot represents something lesser, it fits in three-fourth or half a sheet of a normal size paper. You look at it closely and the image hits you--you realise that life is indeed finite.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Most are so busy living that we forget that all of us will cease to exist at some point in the future. We forget that we cannot chose when we will die. And consequently, we are not prepared -and not just emotionally, even in more mundane things like ensuring nominations for bank accounts and mutual funds, to having a will. When confronted by a page or lesser of an A-4 paper of what represents your possible life span you do realise that you cannot ignore the reality that your life can fizzle out like the dot in that piece of paper.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Once that realisation dawns, you do seriously start planning what is it you want to do in the remaining part of the page, which is your life span. Relatives you have wanted to meet but never could. People you wanted to say sorry to for things done or not done but never did. People you wished to help but did not. All activities you procrastinated since you always did think there is a lot more time. This exercise brings a certain immediacy. You remember your Maker a lot more -and yes it certainly makes you more responsive, more forgiving, more helpful -in short, a better person. However, it is important that we do not let ourselves burdened so much with the dramatic image of Tim Urban that we also cease to live. It is the only persons who live life who will die -and as has been said while you indeed live only once ‘if you do it right, once is enough.”</p>
<p class="bodytext">That life is transient is well known to all of us. We are born – it would appear only to die. Author Tim Urban has dramatically and with great effect brought out the very finite nature of life. He has in his work The Tail End laid out visually the human lifespan in years, months, weeks, days. You would think that this will not be possible. What Tim Urban has done is to put a dot in a sheet of paper. Each dot representing a certain period-say years or months, or weeks or days. Assume that you are a healthy, lucky person with a life span of 90 years. Even if each dot represents a day, it comfortably fits in a A-4 sheet of paper-and if it each dot represents something lesser, it fits in three-fourth or half a sheet of a normal size paper. You look at it closely and the image hits you--you realise that life is indeed finite.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Most are so busy living that we forget that all of us will cease to exist at some point in the future. We forget that we cannot chose when we will die. And consequently, we are not prepared -and not just emotionally, even in more mundane things like ensuring nominations for bank accounts and mutual funds, to having a will. When confronted by a page or lesser of an A-4 paper of what represents your possible life span you do realise that you cannot ignore the reality that your life can fizzle out like the dot in that piece of paper.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Once that realisation dawns, you do seriously start planning what is it you want to do in the remaining part of the page, which is your life span. Relatives you have wanted to meet but never could. People you wanted to say sorry to for things done or not done but never did. People you wished to help but did not. All activities you procrastinated since you always did think there is a lot more time. This exercise brings a certain immediacy. You remember your Maker a lot more -and yes it certainly makes you more responsive, more forgiving, more helpful -in short, a better person. However, it is important that we do not let ourselves burdened so much with the dramatic image of Tim Urban that we also cease to live. It is the only persons who live life who will die -and as has been said while you indeed live only once ‘if you do it right, once is enough.”</p>
