""You might imagine, moreover, that living with such an unrealistic sense of your own historical importance would make life feel more meaningful, by investing your every action with a feeling of cosmic significance, however unwarranted. But what actually happens is that this **overvaluing of your existence gives rise to an unrealistic definition of what it would mean to use your finite time well.** "It sets the bar much too high. **It suggests that in order to count as having been “well spent,” your life needs to involve deeply impressive accomplishments, or that it should have a lasting impact on future generations—or at the very least that it must, in the words of the philosopher Iddo Landau, “transcend the common and the mundane.**” "Clearly, it can’t just be ordinary: **After all, if your life is as significant in the scheme of things as you tend to believe, how could you not feel obliged to do something truly remarkable with it?**" --- **Tags** -- [[quotes]], [[momento-mori]], [[personal-values]], [[character]], [[acceptance]], [[expectations]] **Source** -- [[202410130434 - B - Four Thousand Weeks]]