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 are part of the perennial group, people with mature bodies and young minds who know that their legacy is a work that will continue to be constantly built 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 harmful), recovering self-esteem and seeing values ​​in themselves that have always been there but were never noticed.

That linear life of “study – get a stable job – get married once – have children – retire – die” has been gone for a long time. According to neuroscientist Anne-Laure Le Cunff, we receive several lives inside the same body before we die. According to her, it takes about 7 years for a person to master something. If you live until you are 88, and considering that your childhood ends around 11, after that you will 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, take the opportunity to end one cycle and start another. After all, you have 11 of them at your disposal.

Looking back, my life is proof of this thesis. I was born poor, became rich, lost everything (including hope) and have been getting back on my feet. I was an engineer, then an economist, then an administrator, but I worked as a corporate strategy consultant. I have owned or been a partner in at least 10 companies. Some were successful, others collapsed miserably. I had great partners and others who were absolute disasters. I was reborn when I went to work in Mozambique, in the middle of a horrific civil war, sometimes with machine guns pointed at my face. And I was reborn again when I went to do my master's degree in Boston, the epicenter of intellectualism and the sophisticated American bourgeoisie. Immersing myself in two opposing realities in little more than 5 years can make anyone lose touch with life and human beings.

I've gotten married, divorced, gotten together, gotten separated, got involved, got disappointed, got disappointed... in this area there's been everything and there will certainly be more. I've almost always dated women with religions, personalities and lifestyles that are very different from mine. Disappointments in love are ideal opportunities for us to end one life and start another. On the other hand, many friends have revealed themselves to be super conservative. They've forgotten to reinvent themselves and are in conflict with the world.

Knowing the world is essential for reinventing yourself. 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 makes you 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.