The courage to live on your own terms

Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Nietzsche had been on my reading list for years. I finally got to it recently. While I didn’t really like the book, there was one chapter that really got to me, called “Of Voluntary Death.” This is the idea: Live so fully and intentionally that when death comes, it feels like a completion rather than an interruption. I love that. Think about it. Most of us don’t live that way. We drift, we delay, we stay on a trajectory that we know is not the right one. And then one day it’s over… This is why we fear death. Nietzsche wrote: “To be sure, he who never lived at the right time could hardly die at the right time! Better if he were never to be born!” A person who never truly lived, who drifted, obeyed, delayed, copied others, and never became themselves, cannot really “die at the right time” either. Why? Because for Nietzsche, the “right time” is not about age. It is about ripeness. He admired the idea of a person who lives with such intensity, purpose, and…