How to Think About Your Death

"...By forcing yourself to think about death—your own death and that of loved ones—your time-use decisions change. I ask my 20-something graduate students to estimate how many Thanksgivings they realistically have left with their parents, and then to consider how they should spend those remaining occasions. This is a hard exercise for them, and some of them cry. But it can also alter such decisions as where they choose to live and work. Rarely, if ever, have I heard anyone regret deciding to live near friends and family—any more than I recall hearing someone say, as they near death, “I wish I’d spent more time focused on my job.”"

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Arthur Brooks

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Also see (Maria Popova on) Bertrand Russell...

"Make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river — small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being."