"I [Merlin] have to live backwards from in front, while surrounded by a lot of people living forwards from behind. Some people call it having second sight." — T. H. White

Karen didn't have a near-death experience. She had what she calls a "near-life experience." While scrolling through life, Karen wasn't thinking much about the quality of life or meaning. Then she lost her father.

As she waded through her grief, the realization that life ends hit her hard in the face. Amid a mountain of procrastination, avoidance, and screen time, she realized she wasn't living. At least, she wasn't engaging with life in a way that appreciated each day as an extraordinary opportunity to interact with what matters.

So, she wrote the book Your To-Die-For Life: How to Maximize Joy and Minimize Regret... Before Your Time Runs Out. It wasn't her first book; she's a bestselling author. Yet, this was the first she crafted that pointedly faced two of the most fearful things we humans face: death and what you should do between now and then.

Karen discusses her near-life experience in this way: "I was on my phone too much, swiping. So, thereby, I wasn't fully in my life. I was near my life, but I was life adjacent. I'd be out to dinner with a friend, and my mind might be elsewhere, I might be worrying about something in the future, or thinking about a regret or resentment. Again, I wasn't fully in my life."

Losing someone we love often creates a sort of divide—life before and life after. After losing her father, Karen discusses an in-your-face realization: "I woke up to the idea that death........

© Psychology Today