As if you have only 12 years to live

What if what frightened you could instead motivate you?

What if you could not only accept your biggest weakness but also somehow turn it into a strength?

These are some of the questions I've been asking since I heard a certain point on Mark Manson's podcast. (This point was made before Manson changed his podcast format and also before I quit podcasts cold turkey like a madman so that I could have more time to listen to music again.)

I forget the exact episode and the context for the point, but, if I remember correctly, Manson shared an anecdote related to a listener's question about changing your nature. (What bits and bytes that make up your personality within the Simulation are constants and which are variables you can improve?)

When he was a dating coach, Manson said, clients would often confide their desires to change a core part of themselves. Many said they wished they could stop being anxious messes.

Me too, man. Me too.

So I was interested to hear Manson's thoughts on the matter.

Then he said it—

I got bad news for you, bro: If you're overly anxious, then you're probably gonna be overly anxious 'til the day you die. You just gotta find a way to accept and deal.

In the case of anxiety, pharmaceuticals and cognitive behavior therapy can be great treatments, but they're not cures, meaning you're likely stuck with anxiety for however long you're lucky to live.

Bummer.

But what if you could do something awesome with your curse?

The exploration of this question has led to a radical shift in how I approach my own anxiety.

If you follow me on LinkedIn (Linky Dink), then over the last few weeks, you've seen wave after wave of shenanigans from me and some of my digital friends, who have been helping me pervert the sanctity of the world's largest professional network, which is now truly just a social media platform like so many others.

While it may appear to be all fun and games (and maybe it is for everyone else—I can't speak for them), let me pull back the curtain and let you in on a personal secret: My recent and current activity (on Linky Dink and elsewhere) is driven by anxiety. And a moderate dose of neuroticism.

Because, these days, I'm living by a very specific timer. Since my 40th birthday earlier this year, I've been living as if I have only 12 years left to live.

Though we can all go at any moment, I have no logical reason to think I have only 12 years left to live. The reason is purely emotional.

Back when my site was a blog and before it became a newsletter, I wrote about the simple math that guides my life. And in that post, I shared that I'm 40 years old, while my father and stepfather were each 51 at the times of their deaths, and my mother was 52 at the time of hers.

So, if I live only as long as the oldest of my parental figures, then I have only 12-ish years to live. (Technically, I have something closer to 11 and a half years. But remember, kids: Don't let facts get in the way of a good story.)

These bits of personal math are nothing new, as I've been running the numbers since 2011, when my parents died. There was also a time when I lived with the burden of the self-created prophecy that I'm destined to die from cancer, just as they did.

What is new is the framing of the math, which is no longer an exercise in dread, but instead an exercise in daring to dream what's possible.

While I have good reason to think I'll live more than 12 years, I want to live the next 12 years as if they're all I have left. While terminally ill people often get prognoses much shorter than 12 years, it's really not a lot of time when we're talking about the balance of one's mortality.

What can I accomplish in such a short amount of time? That's the question that guides the anxieties I've shared in this post.

Why would anyone do such a thing?

Well, for one, I'm an artist at my core. And, nearly 20 years ago, at my first real grownup job, a colleague shared a certain insight I didn't appreciate at the time but now see as wise, and I've adopted it as part of my own personal philosophy. This colleague, a musician at heart, told me that imposing limitations on your art gives structure and value to said art. (For example, Western music has only seven notes. Requiring certain rhythm and maybe even rhyming for a song or poem is a limitation, but it's a limitation that adds value to the art.) At first I scoffed. Why would anyone make an already-difficult process more difficult? But, now I see that, when you've set up the right limitations in certain areas, then you're free to explore creativity in other areas.

These days, I see myself as a bit of a performance artist. I'm not in the same league as Andy Kaufman or Pee-wee Herman, but I do have my own spin on it. Because my performance art is all about leaning into my anxiety. Instead of letting anxiety hold me back, I'm learning how to use it as fuel to propel me into the great unknown that awaits us in the unraveling of the 21st Century.

The good news is that, when anxiety and neuroticism are the fuels for your performance art, it's so easy to find inspiration all around you.

Someone once accused me of using dark humor as a coping mechanism. Like, duh. But there's no reason to make such an accusation these days, because I openly admit that's exactly what I've done before, what I'm doing now, and what I'll likely do always. I'm anxious af about the current moment--and I don't think I need to elaborate. If you're reading this newsletter, then you surely have enough imagination to fill in those blanks.

As I've already shared, I often think about the ages of my parental figures at the times of their deaths. I've tried to push those thoughts into some forgotten corner of my mind, but I can't—they keep popping up. Rather than feel bad about it, I've accepted it's not my fault, because certain things happened to me to form me into the person I am.

So, I'm taking that personal math and creating an artistic limitation for myself: Live as if you have only 12 years left. What can you accomplish in that time? What awesome thing or things can you do in that time to honor your parents—and the limited and uncertain nature of human existence? Can you turn your anxiety into a form of catharsis?

My anxiety is also the fuel for the novel I'm writing, because, if the world's going to hell in a handbasket, then I don't want it all to end with my novel unfinished. But Jake, you may say, surely you don't really think the world's going to end. Humanity has survived so many scary times, and though you may have concerns about what's going on in your homeland, America still has the great advantage of having a diversity of resources and some of the world's best borders. Logically, I agree. Emotionally, I'm not so mature.

My anxiety ain't going away. I have 40 years of data and anecdotes to back up that statement. So I'm stuck with that artistic limitation in that I can't get rid of it. It's part of the formula of my performance art. But I'm lucky that I can turn that limitation into an asset.

This edition of the newsletter has focused a lot on me. I'm sorry for that. But, as is often the case with my art, I share parts of myself in the hope you'll see reflections of yourself.

So, let's bring this back to you: What artistic limitations are you stuck living with that you can work to turn into crucial elements of your own performance art? What particular anxieties can you lean into and find inspiration in? Or, what limitation beside anxiety can you use as a framework for your life?

I genuinely would love to know. So, if you're willing to share, please let me know by responding to this email.

<3,

Jake