Reading — Rules I Try to Live By

Rules I Try to Live ByOn the Long Run · Rule 22

On the Long Run

Rule 22Chapter V

Live so the eulogy is easy

Why this rule exists

The eulogy is the quiet test behind all the others. Nobody stands up and recounts your job title or your busiest quarter. They talk about how you made people feel, whether you showed up, whether you were kind. Living with that ending in view has a way of sorting the loud priorities from the ones that will actually matter.

Rules I Try to Live By

In practice

Now and then, picture what you'd want honestly said about you, then check whether this week points that way. Choose the patient reply, the visit, the promise kept. Let the ending edit the calendar. I try to make the small daily choices that a good eulogy is simply the sum of.

When it doesn't apply

Held too tightly, this turns morbid or into performing virtue for an imagined audience. The aim isn't to obsess over death or to perform goodness, but to let the long view gently correct the short one. Live now; just don't lose the horizon.

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