Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.
The great question which, in all ages, has disturbed mankind, and brought on them the greatest part of their mischiefs, has been, not whether there be power in the world, nor whence it came, but who should have it.