The Half-Known Life

What Matters Most When You’re Running Out of Time

“I’m going down now,” I said to a young woman a few seconds before the darkness—my first cardiac arrest. As I returned to work as a behavioral coach, it became maddening to hear, for the ten-thousandth time, about all-consuming, everyday problems and misguided priorities while I fought to merely remain conscious.

The Half-Known Life challenges conventional thinking of success, identity, and personal change. Most often, truly profound change happens following events that shake someone to their core—a car accident, death of a family member, or cardiac arrest that pulls them into a moment of clarity. Priorities change when time becomes precious. Problems look different when you have no energy left to give them. After all, marathon runners don’t say much on mile twenty; they choose to breathe. And all I have to give is channeled into each moment that I am awake and I, too, choose to breathe.

Why wait until you’re burnt out or for a life-changing event to occur before getting real about your life? Who are you when all of the accolades and accomplishments are gone? You can master time management, but what does how you manage that time say about what’s important to you—about what matters most?

Get out of your head and get into your life before it slips away.