“As we’ve seen, **it’s a fact of life that, as a finite human, you’re always making hard choices**—so that, for example, in spending this afternoon on one thing that mattered to me (writing), I necessarily had to forgo many other things that mattered too (like playing with my son). It’s natural to see this situation as highly regrettable, and to yearn for some alternative version of existence in which we wouldn’t have to choose between valued activities in this way. But if it’s amazing to have been granted any being at all—if “your whole life is borrowed time,” as Cain realized, watching news reports of the Danforth Avenue shootings—**then wouldn’t it make more sense to speak not of having to make such choices, but of getting to make them?** From this viewpoint, the situation starts to seem much less regrettable: each moment of decision becomes an opportunity to select from an enticing menu of possibilities, when you might easily never have been presented with the menu to begin with. And it stops making sense to pity yourself for having been cheated of all the other options.“ --- **Tags** -- [[quotes]], [[making-decisions]], [[momento-mori]], [[gratitude]], [[attention]], [[counter-intuitive-thinking]] **Source** -- [[202410130434 - B - Four Thousand Weeks]]