Why being alive is the ultimate win
“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born.”
—Richard Dawkins
Congratulations.
If you’re reading this, you’ve already won.
You’ve won the golden ticket to the greatest prize on Earth: human life. Unlike all the stardust, comets, and clumps of rock drifting through the cosmos, you get to live. You get to taste, to feel, to think, to wonder. Out of billions who might have been here instead, you’re the one who gets a turn on this improbable stage.
And not just any turn—you get to live as a human being. Unlike other animals, you don’t merely respond to life’s instincts. You get to appreciate life. To reflect on it. To stand outside of your experiences and savor them as meaningful ends in themselves.
That makes your existence not just functional—but profound, and even magnificent.
The Privilege of Awareness
A sparrow feels the wind, but you can marvel at it. A dog enjoys a meal, but you can bless the fact that food exists at all. We humans don’t just experience our experiences; we interpret them. We make meaning from them. We put a frame around them to appreciate them more.
That’s the foundation of what I call aesthetic experience: treating your own life as something worthy of wonder, the way you’d stand before a painting or lose yourself in a symphony.
Most of us forget this privilege. We live as if life were a dull entitlement rather than a miracle. We rush past sunrises, ignore the people we love, numb ourselves with busyness. The extraordinary slips into the background.
We forget we’re already holding the golden ticket, right now.
The Anesthetic of Familiarity
Richard Dawkins once wrote about “the anesthetic of soporific familiarity.” The phrase cuts deep. Because it names exactly what happens when we get used to being alive: we stop noticing. We fall asleep, even while we’re living.
If we only saw the world for a single day, we would fall to our knees in awe. Instead, because we see it every day, we take it for granted.
That’s anesthetic living—the slow sleepwalk of existence where the miracle is still happening, but we don’t take time to taste it.
Breaking through that anesthetic fog requires perspective. And one of the sharpest tools for regaining perspective is mortality awareness.
Borrowing the Eyes of Your Final Hour
Imagine what you would feel if you knew you had only an hour left to live.
Suddenly, the weight of your expectations would dissolve. The sting of a missed promotion or a failed grade would mean little compared to the raw privilege of another breath, another chance to look into someone’s eyes, another chance to feel wind across your skin.
Life Savor—the philosophy behind this post—is about training yourself to borrow that perspective before the final hour. To look at your day not merely as an endless to-do list, but also as a once-in-eternity chance to exist.
What the Golden Ticket Isn’t
The golden ticket perspective doesn’t mean ignoring hardship. It doesn’t mean chanting “gratitude” until your problems vanish.
Life is hard. You’ll still grieve. You’ll still face illness, betrayal, frustration. Recognizing life as a gift doesn’t erase pain. But it reframes it.
Your life isn’t good because it’s easy. Your life is good because it is.
And when you see your existence that way, you can hold both: the ache of difficulty and the awe of being here at all.
Three Practices for Holding Onto the Ticket
Winning the golden ticket is automatic—you’re alive. Remembering you hold it takes work. Here are three ways to practice:
- Practice Mortal Perspective
Spend time in a graveyard. Read the names. Imagine their stories. Realize that you, too, will be a name someday. Let that sharpen your awareness of the time you still have. - Name Your Bonuses
If life since birth has been a gift, then every day after today is a bonus round. Write down three small things today that felt like “extra currency.” A song, a hug, a quiet hour. - Borrow Awe
Pretend you’re an alien visiting Earth for the first time. What would astonish you? The fact that you drink water? That humans laugh? That the sky changes color every evening? See your life with borrowed eyes.
Paying Life Back
Here’s the truth: you can never repay the gift of life. There is no cosmic ledger where your gratitude balances the account.
But you can do justice to your existence. You can notice it. You can savor it. You can live in a way that acknowledges the miracle, even if only in small daily moments.
The real tragedy isn’t death—it’s forgetting to live (and to appreciate life) while we have the chance.
Final Thought
You’ve already won the lottery. You’ve already been handed the golden ticket.
Don’t trade it away for numbness, for gratuitous busyness, for the anesthetic of familiarity.
You don’t need a trophy, a title, or a perfect story to justify your existence. The simple fact that you are here—that you are breathing, sensing, wondering—is enough.
And when you really see that, life stops feeling like a burden. It starts feeling like what it always was: a gift.
