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Life’s exit strategy

In the world of start-ups, everybody talks about exit strategies. The venture capitalists provides the seed money, the business grows, breaks even and after about six years, venture capitalists want to cash out of their investment. Usually there are two options: initial public offering (going public in the stock market) or getting acquired by a bigger company.
I was thinking about the analogy between a start-up company and a person’s life. It seemed to me that planning for one’s death is like planing for a start-up’s exit. The very relevant question here is whether we believe in life after death or not, because the answer to this question can dramatically change one’s plans for one’s death. Is it possible to have an exit strategy that is independent of the answer to this question? Is it possible to prepare oneself for one’s death such that at the moment of death - assuming that there is such a moment, as in American Beauty - one can look back at their life and say “I lived a good life and I’m ready for my death”? Is it possible to live one’s life such that one could never be caught off-guard by death? To my limited understanding, it seems like it is possible. I hope I can live my life, such that whenever death visits me and I had a moment of reflection, I could say that magic phrase.

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This entry was posted on Monday, July 7th, 2008 at 4:09 am and is filed under Life, Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Life’s exit strategy”

  1. no imageRahau (Who am I?) Says:
    July 8th, 2008 at 12:23 am

    I wonder what motivates one to care about life’s exit, especially if one doesn’t believe in life after death ? In case of companies, as you said, one wants to cash out of all that investment. That is not the case in one’s life.
    At some point in one’s life, death comes and boom! THE END! why does it matter how one feels about it?
    When death comes to one, either
    One gets the chance to look back and say “I lived a good and full life, I knew it is temporary, I enjoyed it all and now I am ready to let go”.
    Or, one looks back and say “O, I am not ready, I don’t want to let go, don’t take me”.
    Now, I agree that first one feel good and second one is painful to experience, but after all, one’s life is going to end as well as the last pain or pleasure.
    I wonder if avoiding pain and having pleasure is the motivation behind all this preparation or there are other factors?

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  2. no imageAdministrator (Who am I?) Says:
    July 8th, 2008 at 12:56 am

    Thanks Rahau for your comment.
    I guess one of my favorite mottos is “Always be prepared.” I just don’t like unpleasant surprises.

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