Earn your Death
I don’t know if you heard of a guy named Bryan Johnson. It’s okay if you haven’t, because by the time you finish reading this, you’ll have a pretty good idea who he is.
Bryan is a venture capitalist whose company, Braintree, purchased Venmo in 2012 and sold it to PayPal in 2013 for $800 million. Bryan walked away with 300 mil for his efforts.
Bryan is filthy rich and became obsessed with reversing the aging process, so he set out on a quest to do just that.
Bryan spent four years doing things that only a man of his wealth can afford to do, and he lists it all out on his website, which you can view here.
Every day, he followed the same diet. Every day, he took a cocktail of drugs and supplements. He added stem cells, gene therapy, and plasma transfusions, even using his son as a donor for one of them.
His obsession with reversing aging spawned a company that sells - you guessed it - supplements, nutritional products, and testing kits. From the look of his website and the reviews on the products, many people are buying items such as $100 olive oil and protein powder for $150 per month.
Let the buyer beware, but what if the buyer doesn’t know their ass from a hole in the ground? Don’t worry, Bryan is there to take your money.
His efforts at reversing aging made national news, and if you have heard of him, I guarantee it was because of that very reason. Netflix released a documentary about him called “Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever.”
I remember watching Prometheus, part of the Alien series of movies, and at the end, Peter Weyland, another billionaire with too much money to spend and time on his hands, is awakened from stasis to meet his creators — the Engineers. Not to learn for unselfish reasons to benefit mankind back on earth, but to ask the Engineer how he can live forever.
Needless to say, if you have watched this movie, you know what happens next. If you didn’t watch it, the Engineer didn’t like what Weyland asked and killed him.
Bryan’s quest to reverse aging fortunately didn’t end up like Weyland’s, but there have been scores of men obsessed with living forever. Bryan is just the latest one, and in our media-hungry world, the most publicized to date.
The reality for Bryan, as for the rest of us, is simple.
You cannot reverse aging. You cannot stop cell degradation. You cannot prevent the inevitable end of life.
What you can do is even better, more rewarding, and happier.
You can take control of the life you have now and treat your body and mind with the respect a short life deserves.
Strength training.
Cardiovascular work.
Healthy stress-relieving tactics.
Proper sleep.
Healthy relationships.
Mindful, healthy eating with the occasional indulgence in unhealthy treats.
Minimizing doom scrolling and news consumption.
Monitor your bloodwork and consult a doctor regularly for check-ups.
Walking.
Being present.
Cultivating a sense of purpose.
To some, this list may seem like an impossible task, but I challenge those people to seek the possibilities within it.
I have a good friend from my childhood, and we lived one block apart growing up. We used to play with our Matchbox cars together, and it was such a simple time. Later in life, his dad was my boss at the bar where I used to work, and Steve was my coworker.
We kept in touch over the years, and a few years ago, I used a slogan on social media that said, “Earn your death.”
He reached out to me a few years ago, as we had kept in touch over the years via text messages. He was clearly in pain, and to be honest, I don’t remember what I said, but he turned a corner, and he didn’t take his life.
He reminds me of that day every so often, and I am humbled that something I said had such a profound impact on someone else, especially someone I knew for most of my life.
He sent me this text some time ago:
“You showed me guys like us can transform into the extraordinary. Following your journey through the years taught me the most important rule: to earn my death, and that, my friend, I do every day.”
I look at Bryan and his quest for immortality, and I think. What if that were possible? What benefit do you get from never dying? Your family and your friends are dying around you, and before you know it, you are left alone. All you knew and loved in this world is a memory you are forced to endure alone. You have to attempt to cycle through life, making new friends, watching them pass away, and repeating the process. Sure, if you are wealthy, you have your money, but money is a tangible good, and it’s the intangibles that make life amazing.
The sense of love, the sense of belonging, the work you put into making your life one filled with love, laughter, health, and happiness - the wonderment of aging gracefully while doing your best to maintain your health along the way.
You will change, you will adapt, and the world will change around you. Technology will come along faster than you can keep up, and that’s ok. What you can control is how you face the life you have right in front of you face by taking care of the one life you have to live.
What good is life without taking advantage of what we are capable of? What good is life if we have nobody to share it with? What good is life, spending it dishonoring the body you are in by taking it for granted?
Taking care of yourself now in the ways mentioned above will allow you to experience life better as you get older. Aging is inevitable, and no matter how much money you spend to try to delay it, we will all grow old and die.
The bullet list above is mostly free. Doctors cost money (or at least a small co-pay), food costs money, gyms cost money, and if you need someone to help you with both, they cost money, but the rest of it is free.
Bryan spent $2 million a year to push back the aging process, and now sells a series of ridiculously overpriced products to people who want to experience a sense of feeling younger again.
Were his motives the search for the fountain of youth or a new stream of income?
Who knows for sure?
One thing I do know for sure is that we all owe it to ourselves to earn our death.
Take care of the one life you have; treat it with the care it deserves. Lift some weights, take a long walk, make a healthy meal, and end it off with something small and sweet. Call a friend and talk with them. Sit with your partner, put your phone in another room, and give them your undivided love and attention - not just once, but all the time. Play with your kids and teach them how life should be. Start a new hobby. Play a new sport. Experience the joy of life.
We have one life to live, go and earn your death.
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