David Bowie died this past week after a courageous eighteen month battle with liver cancer. The news of his death shocked me like it did most people. One of the major figures of my generation has been lost. There will be no more David Bowies.
Over the past week as I’ve thought about his passing, there’s been’s one thing that’s become very clear to me: David Bowie’s life was a life well lived. Even though his passing leaves a huge hole in the world, I find comfort in the knowledge that he lived his life to the fullest – a life that most people can only imagine. His passing has been a lesson on living.
The one thing that has impacted me the most during the past week is the fact that he had started to write his next album knowing full well that he was dying and that his time was scarce. That, to me, defines how an artist lives his life. He works and creates until the end. There is no stopping. There can be no greater example of this than how David Bowie did it.
His passing has definitely made me think of how fragile life can be. We live in an era where self help memes appear almost every second on our social media feeds giving us advice on how to live life. Some of them do contain a kernel of truth, but taken in on a daily basis without any action they become meaningless wallpaper on our feeds. Despite how earnestly we make and begin our new year’s resolutions, most are abandoned less than a month into the new year thus trivializing the decisions that are important to us. That’s not how it works. At least not for me.
However you decide to make your life decisions, always make sure you make them because they’re important to you and for no other reason. Make them and then take action. Remember to be kind, to love, and to laugh. And most of all, make sure that your life is also a life that’s being well lived.