Everything, without exception, dies — the fruit fly in twenty-four hours, the giant redwood tree in a thousand years. We humans get a hundred years, tops. That's the arrangement. Possibly we go on to another life or come back to live another life here, but this is our only life for certain, and [the] idea is to live this one in the kindest wisest way we can with the ongoing awareness of death enhancing each day.
— Susan Trott, The Holy Man's Journey