You have two lives

January 21st, 2023
Bellevue, WA

I was watching a youtube video the other day and came across this quote. The meaning being imparted here was about the acknowledgement of the shortness of ones life. Only when we understand how short and brief our time is that we truly begin to live with intention. It feels very much like a mid-life type of quote, when I was younger this wouldn't have been something that I would have given much thought.

I think two things were required for me to come to terms with this quote, first the time to reflect where I currently am in life. I think the first 20 or so years of my life flew by without me even knowing. Taking the time to reflect the past is something one shouldn't dwell on but shouldn't avoid either.

And second is the understanding of the "heavy" feeling of the passage time relativily speaking. I think for many of my millenial friends, it's probably quite a shock to realize that the year 2000 is almost a quarter of a century ago now. The days of our youth have passed and this may cause us to reckon with the time that we have "remaining".

Overall, this quote got me thinking about those two specific points, and maybe this is something that I should revisit more often. I don't want to feel like my life is just flashing by. By being intentional and reflective on the way that I live. I hope to "soften" these "weighty" moments where I feel the brevity of life.

Again, if you do a quick google search on this, a lot of people will attribute this quote to Confucius. But then there are a similar number of posts/pages that question if this was something any Chinese philosopher has said at all. I'll be attibuting this to "anonymous" until I can find more definitive proof of where this quote might have originated from.


“We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only have one.”

― Anonymous (?)

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