Such a precept confronts him with life’s finiteness as well as the finality of what he makes out of both his life and himself.

The only real question about all this finitude is whether we’re willing to confront it or not. And this, for Heidegger, is the central challenge of human existence: since finitude defines our lives, he argues that living a truly authentic life—becoming fully human—means facing up to that fact.

at any time each of the moments of which life consists is dying, and that moment will never recur. And yet is not this transitoriness a reminder that challenges us to make the best possible use of each moment of our lives?

To be clear, no amount of time can make my life long enough. Leading a life is not a project that can be completed but rather a purposive activity that must be sustained. The judgment that my life is too short is constitutive of leading a life, which requires that I postpone the death I bear within myself.

the paradox of limitation, which runs through everything that follows: the more you try to manage your time with the goal of achieving a feeling of total control, and freedom from the inevitable constraints of being human, the more stressful, empty and frustrating life gets. But the more you confront the facts of finitude instead – and work with th

This notion that fulfillment might lie in embracing, rather than denying, our temporal limitations wouldn’t have surprised the philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome.

Since change is constant, you wonder if people crave death because it’s the only way they can get anything really finished.