Musings on Mortality on a Monday Morning
My 8 km drive to work takes between 25 - 45 minutes based on the traffic and I typically spend this time listening to podcasts. This Monday morning commute had one of the most unusual podcasts I've listened to in recent times - Kara Swisher, who is known more for her tech pieces, talking to Hansa Bergwall, the co-founder of the WeCroak app on how reflecting on death five times a day results in increased happiness. According to Bergwall, the app is based on a Bhutanese saying: “To be a truly happy person, one must contemplate death five times daily.” The only thing the app does is pop up quotes that remind us of our mortality. This idea isn't new, but it became more widely known when Steve Jobs, in his much watched commencement speech at Stanford University , said: My third story is about death. When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on ...