What feels urgent today will feel small the moment you remember what actually matters.
Once life ends, and it will end for all of us, no one thinks about missed chances, more equity, or the goals they never scored. You can see this in the people who were closest to the edge. The ones who almost left and came back.
People who have had near-death experiences often describe the same thing. Not panic. Not regret. Something closer to an overwhelming sense of love. Not romantic or sentimental.
A feeling that softens fear until only peace remains. When everything else drops away, that is the one thing that stays.
Even terminally ill patients who receive DMT in controlled settings report something similar. Many of them say that love feels like the real foundation underneath everything else. Not as a belief. As something experienced.
Afterward, most of them want the same thing. More time with the people they care about, even if the relationships are imperfect.
In everyday life, it is easy to forget all of this.
We get distracted by things that sparkle.
We tell ourselves the next purchase will make us feel complete.
The next upgrade will fix a feeling we cannot name.
But no one forces us to chase any of it.
But no one forces us to chase any of it. We are nudged and tempted, but we choose the moment we reach for the card. And for a minute it works. The new phone feels exciting. The car feels like progress. The house feels like a milestone.
Then time moves. A year passes and a newer model appears. Two years pass and someone else upgrades. Ten years pass and the dream house feels dated.
We keep renewing things that cannot fill us, while ignoring the one thing that does.
A quiet breakfast.
A hug you almost skipped.
A conversation you thought could wait.
Small on the outside.
Huge on the inside.
The only real wealth we get, and easy to miss if you are not paying attention.
And there is something else. You cannot love anyone well if you do not respect yourself. Not because you have to be perfect, but because love given from emptiness turns into need. It becomes clinging. It becomes hoping someone else fills parts of you you refuse to face.
Real love works only when you are steady enough to give without disappearing. When you choose someone instead of leaning on them to hold you up. Loving others starts with how you treat yourself when no one is watching.
So why wait for the end to remember what matters.
Why wait for a crisis to be honest.
Why wait for a scare to be present.
Start now.
Not to chase happiness, but to build the kind of peace that happiness grows from. The next high will fade. But love, quiet and steady, is the one thing that keeps its shape.
When you truly love, rules become unnecessary. You already know what is right. Every tradition has tried to point toward the same thing in its own way. The moment you understand love, you understand how to live.
Not perfectly.
But clearly.
And that clarity is enough.
Love is what remains when everything else ends.