Have you ever paused to ask yourself: Why should I bother living when I know I’ll eventually die? What’s the point of everything we do, knowing that death is inevitable, and all our accomplishments, successes, and struggles will one day fade into nothing? It’s a question that many of us ponder at some point in life. After all, if death is a certainty, why bother with the fleeting moments in between?
Death and life are, undeniably, two sides of the same coin. No one can escape the eventuality of departure—whether it comes sooner or later. Yet, we continue to live, we continue to pursue, and we continue to experience. But still, there are times when we ask ourselves: What’s the point?
The Fly’s Timer: A Lesson in Purpose
Here’s a story that might shed some light on why we live, even when the end seems so certain. Imagine a fly that was born with a timer affixed to its head. At first, the fly has no idea what the timer is for. It starts at 1:00 minute, and as time passes, the timer counts down. The fly continues with its daily activities—buzzing around, feeding, avoiding danger—until the timer reaches zero. At that moment, the fly falls and dies.
But then, something strange happens: the fly is brought back to life, reborn as a fly once again. This time, the fly realizes that the timer was its lifespan, its countdown to death. And now, something else happens. A list of tasks appears before the fly, a to-do list of things it must accomplish before its time runs out. With urgency, the fly begins to work through the tasks—cleaning up rotting fruit in the trash, avoiding the rain, and so on.
As the timer ticks down to its final moments, the fly arrives at its penultimate task: “Watch the stars.” But there’s one problem—it’s daytime, and the stars are nowhere to be seen. Desperate to complete the task before the timer runs out, the fly frantically searches for a way to witness the stars, but time is slipping away. The final task on the list is even more pressing: “Be famous.” The fly doesn’t know how to achieve fame in such little time. It’s a task without clear instructions, a goal without a roadmap. How can a tiny fly become famous, especially when it’s running out of time?
And then, in the final second, the timer reaches 00:01. The fly is stuck in a drop of some sticky substance, its wings trapped as it struggles helplessly. Its eyes are wide open, and time freezes. The timer has stopped. The fly got to watch the stars as the day turns to night, and it certainly never figured out how to become famous—at least, not in the way it expected. But in an unexpected twist, the fly’s fate takes an ironic turn.
The substance that trapped the fly hardens over time, preserving it in a solid, fossilized form. Decades later, this hardened mass is discovered by humans—now a strange, unique artifact. It’s brought to auction as a one-of-a-kind stone with a fly preserved inside, perfectly intact. The fly, unknowingly, becomes famous, its tiny body encased forever in the hardened substance. The task of “being famous” was fulfilled, but not in the way the fly could ever have imagined.
A Question of Purpose
Now, let’s pause for a moment and think about this story. Was the fly’s life a success? Did it achieve greatness by completing the tasks on its list? From one perspective, yes—it followed the list, ticked off each box, and was even “rewarded” with fame in the end. But here’s the catch: the list wasn’t the fly’s own. It was given to it. The tasks weren’t its choices; they were someone else’s expectations, a script written by an unknown force.
The fly lived not in pursuit of its own dreams or desires, but in accordance with a set of rules and goals imposed upon it. And when it reached the end of its life, it found that it hadn’t truly achieved what it wanted. In fact, the only task that really mattered—the one that would have given it true satisfaction—was watching the stars, but it wasn’t able to do that. The fly didn’t get to choose the manner in which it would become famous. It didn’t decide that it would be immortalized as a preserved insect inside a piece of stone. Instead, it was the result of an unexpected twist of fate.
Are We Living for Ourselves?
Isn’t this a reflection of how many of us live our lives? How often do we follow a to-do list that doesn’t belong to us? How often do we strive to meet expectations that were set by society, our families, our cultures, or even the media—without ever asking ourselves if those are the things we truly want?
We are constantly told to achieve success, accumulate wealth, acquire status, and meet milestones that others deem important. But how often do we take the time to reflect on our own desires and dreams? How often do we ask ourselves, What do I really want from life? And how many of us, at the end of our lives, will look back and feel that we lived authentically, or will we feel as though we were simply following someone else’s script?
The fly’s story is not just about the inevitability of death. It’s a reminder that the scariest thing in life is not death itself, but the thought of having lived someone else’s life—of having spent your precious time fulfilling goals and expectations that weren’t truly yours. The fly didn’t get to make its own choices, and in the end, it found that its life didn’t bring it the satisfaction it sought.
Living Life for Yourself
We can all take a lesson from the fly’s experience. Yes, death is inevitable. But death isn’t the true fear. The true fear is to live a life dictated by the expectations of others, to go through the motions and arrive at the end of our days, only to realize we never truly lived for ourselves. At that point, it will be too late to change anything.
When you find yourself at the end of your life, lying on your deathbed, what will you think about? Will you look back with regret, thinking about all the things you should have done, all the ways you could have lived differently? Or will you be at peace, knowing that you made choices that were true to yourself—that you lived authentically, even if your life didn’t follow the conventional path?
Life is not about following someone else’s list. It’s about writing your own list—one that reflects your values, your passions, your dreams. It’s about taking the time to ask yourself, What do I really want from this life? And then, making choices that align with that truth.
Yes, death is real, and yes, it is coming for all of us. But living your life authentically—living in a way that’s true to who you are—that is the real key to finding peace, purpose, and meaning in life.
At the end of it all, the most important thing is not what you did for others, not how others saw you, but whether you lived your life for yourself. And when you can say, with confidence, that you did—when you can look back and know that you lived fully, on your own terms—that is the greatest achievement you can ever hope for.
Live your life to the fullest. Make it your own. And when death comes, you’ll be ready—not with regret, but with the peace that you truly lived.