Want to Live Longer? Earn It.

I just read this story in The New Yorker magazine about the ultimate competition in life: longevity. Our lives are a series of competitions - what schools we get into, what job titles we have, how much money we make, how much money our kids make, who has the biggest house, the fastest car, the sexiest trophy wife. And then as we near the end of our lives, we can proudly proclaim, "I'll be turning 80 this year and look at me still swinging a golf club!"

It raised some strong emotions in me, for obvious reasons. I'm 41 and have late-stage cancer. Statistically, I won't be alive in a few months' time. When I hear about 80-year-olds wanting to live longer, I can't help feeling these people are just plain greedy.

I haven't done anything worth putting in an obituary during my 41 years on this Earth. I was a schoolteacher but never won a "Best Teacher" award. I was a journalist but never won a Pulitzer. I didn't save anyone's life. I didn't invent anything or create anything. Unless you count my kids. And anybody with healthy ovaries and a willing partner can do that.

So why do I deserve to live another ten or twenty years? I'd have to say that I don't. But my kids deserve to have a mother for another ten or twenty years. They deserve to have me live for them.

I think people who want to live longer should earn it. Don't just ask for more time if you're not going to do something with that time. I don't think turning 80 and still having the strength to finish a round of golf is something to aspire to.

I don't mean we have to win a Nobel Prize or give up our place on Earth to someone else who will. There are other ways to earn the right to live. Yes, that's what I meant. We all have the right to live. Just like animals. But let's be better than animals. Let's strive to do something with our lives so that we actually deserve to have that right. It could be as grand as finding the cure for cancer. Or it could be as simple as bringing joy and laughter to somebody suffering from cancer.

I have a friend who's had an impressive career. She was the executive producer of two of the top-rated TV news shows in the U.S. There will be no shortage of impressive labels to put into her obituary. But I don't think she earned her right to live with those high-profile jobs. I think she did it with what she's doing now, working for an NGO that's training the poorest and most hopeless people in Africa and Asia to feed and heal themselves. The work she's doing now is saving lives. One of her equals hundreds, maybe thousands of people who might otherwise be dead. That's simple math. She's earned her right to be here.

I know a number of people in their seventies and eighties who, like me, are not going to win a Nobel Prize. But they've taught me and their own children and grandchildren lessons in life that can't be measured in dollars, and they've brought me and others joy and happiness that can't be tallied up in a column. There are no awards or prizes for the value they've brought to my life or the lives of others they've touched. But they've earned their right to be here.

Given that I might have months to live, I'm under a bit of pressure to earn whatever time I have left. But I'd like to think I'm doing it now. I'm doing it by staying strong and positive for my family and friends. I'm doing it by not succumbing to sorrow or pity for myself. I'm doing it by bringing as much joy and laughter as I can to the people who care about me in whatever small ways I can find. And, in the end, I hope I earn my remaining months or years of life by being an example to my family, friends, and most important, to my children. Because frankly, it's a little late for me to be gunning for that Pulitzer.