A death contemplation to guide your goals in 2025

How imagining the end can help us focus now

Hello, mortals–and happy 2025! After a brief but intentional pause last week, we’re back and settling in the rhythm of the new year.

Amidst all the intention-setting and goal-setting and self-improvement advice we’ve all been fed to kick off another year, we wanted to offer something a little different. A short but powerful contemplation to guide you in deciding what matters most to you this year—and aligning your actions accordingly.

Let’s just get right into it: What would you do if you knew you only had 10 years left to live?

How would you spend 2025 if you knew that it was the start of your final decade?

10 Years = 120 Months = 521 Weeks = 3652 Days = 87,660 Hours

We’re often told to imagine what we would do if we only had one day or year left to live, but in my experience, 10 years is a more helpful timeframe to work with. It hits a sweet spot between urgency and possibility. It’s enough time to accomplish some larger, meaningful life projects without rushing. But it’s short enough that you probably wouldn’t want to waste your precious time. Ten years is long enough to make transformative changes yet short enough to feel finite.

Consider this: the average American spends 4 hours and 37 minutes on their phone every day—that’s more than 1 full day per week, 6 days per month, and over 70 days a year scrolling, swiping, and tapping. Over the next decade, that adds up to nearly 2 full years spent staring at a screen.

As we step into 2025, think about how you want to spend this year—as one out of the ten you have left. Do you want 70 of your days—nearly a fifth of the year—to be spent on your phone? Or could some of that time be used to nurture your relationships, work toward meaningful goals, or simply enjoy the beauty of being alive? What projects would you focus on—and which ones would you shelve?

Time is your most finite resource, and yet, it’s often the one we spend without intention. Every moment you trade for something is a moment you’ll never get back.

Similarly, every small step you take this year to align your life with your vision for the future can accumulate into profound change. It’s not about radical overnight transformation; it’s about showing up consistently, with intention.

I’m reminded of the wise words of Annie Dillard:

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.”

I hope you and I both live well beyond 2035, but even more so, I hope we spend the next 10 years (and beyond) living a life that truly fills us up.

So here’s my invitation to you: Take a moment this week to reflect. Who do you want to be in 2035? What will you regret not doing? What can you start today—however small—that aligns your life with what matters most to you?

Because the life we want in the future is built by the choices we make now, hour by hour, day by day.

— Maura