11 Lives to Live Before You Die

An increasingly discussed topic is the possibility of someone living more than one life. Not in the literal sense, but in the sense of reinvention.

This issue originally came to light when the world began to take jobs away from older people, followed by a brutal flattening of retirement incomes that prevents them from leading a dignified life.

From the need to rethink your career to the possibility of rethinking your entire life, the leap is almost automatic. Especially if you're part of the perennial group, people with mature bodies and young minds who know their legacy is a work of constant construction until their last breath.

Many people are reinventing themselves, discovering dormant talents, reviving dreams, recovering goals that life has hidden, overcoming prejudices (and self-prejudices, which are even more damaging), recovering self-esteem and seeing values ​​in themselves that have always been there but never been noticed.

That linear life of "study, get a stable job, get married once, have kids, retire, die" has long since disappeared. According to neuroscientist Anne-Laure Le Cunff, we receive multiple lives within the same body before we die. She says it takes about seven years for a person to master something. If you live to be 88, and considering your childhood ends around age 11, after that, you'll have 11 opportunities to be good at something.

The scientist's account is a bit far-fetched, but the concept is valid. You need to stop clinging to the idea of ​​living a life without risk or change. Let yourself die so you can be reborn as a different person. If something goes wrong, instead of trying to go back to the past to fix it, seize the opportunity to end one cycle and begin another. After all, you have 11 of them at your disposal.

Looking back, my life proves this. I was born poor, grew rich, lost everything (including hope), and have been getting back on my feet. I was an engineer, then an economist, then a business administrator, but I actually worked as a corporate strategy consultant. I've owned or partnered with at least 10 companies. Some were successful, others collapsed. I had great partners and others who were absolute disasters. I was reborn when I went to work in Mozambique, in the midst of a horrific civil war, sometimes with machine guns pointed at my face. And I was reborn again when I went to Boston for my master's degree, the epicenter of the American intellectual community and sophisticated bourgeoisie. Immersion in two opposing realities in little more than five years can make anyone lose touch with life and humanity.

I've married, divorced, gotten together, separated, messed around, been disappointed, and been disappointed... there's been everything in this field, and there will certainly be more. I've almost always dated women with very different religions, personalities, and lifestyles than mine. Romantic disappointments are ideal opportunities for us to end one life and begin another. On the other hand, many friends have revealed themselves to be overly conservative. They've forgotten to reinvent themselves and are at odds with the world.

Knowing the world is essential for self-reinvention. Other people, cultures, spaces, stories, lifestyles, climate, food, families... everything challenges your compacted knowledge, everything challenges and enriches you.

Constantly reinventing yourself forces you to learn. Learning leads you to grow. And by growing, you don't die inside. Count how many lives you have left and do yourself a favor: don't die without living them.