What If You Were Immortal?
Imagine for a moment that you were immortal. You woke up one morning and were promised that you would never perish. Your life would continue infinitely, through good health and bad, prosperous times and times of hardship. You would continue to meet challenges and would continue to have times of celebration. The seasons would come and go, and the Earth would continue to morph and shift, but you? You remain eternal.
What would change?
How would you think about things differently?
Or even—how would you be different?
It’s a question that might sound like the beginning of a science fiction movie, but I want you to sit with it seriously. Because how we perceive time—and our place in it—shapes everything. If you knew you had forever, would failure seem as frightening? Would the opinions of others weigh so heavily? Would you chase your purpose with more clarity, less fear?
Michael and I recently reflected on this very idea. I asked him: Would anything be different if you knew you couldn’t die? (And spoiler alert: his answer was different than most people’s.)
Because here’s the truth: If you knew you were immortal, you would probably stop playing small. You might finally understand that with enough time, anything is possible. That the limits you place on yourself are mostly illusions. That you’re not running out of time—you are time. Without you, time doesn’t exist. You’re here experiencing it, utilizing it, and building upon it.
Which brings me to the real twist: we are already immortal.
Okay, maybe not in the way our ego imagines it—not in body, not in name—but in essence.
I suspect your brain might be rebelling: Immortality? That goes against every scientific law we know. But the seen world is only a sliver of reality. Kabbalists teach that it makes up only 1% of our experience of reality. One single percent! The other 99% is found in the unseen—everything that falls outside of our five physical senses. Even science knows this. The more we discover, the more we realize how little we’ve scratched the surface. Here are a few examples:
DNA: The Blueprint… But for What Exactly?When scientists discovered the double helix structure of DNA, it seemed like the ultimate answer to the mystery of life. But we now know that only about 1.5% of our DNA codes for proteins. The rest? Once dismissed as “junk,” it’s now being explored for regulatory, structural, or even unknown functions.
What does the rest of our DNA actually do?
Can it hold untapped potential—emotional, energetic, or even spiritual?
Visible matter (everything we can see and touch) makes up only about 5% of the universe. The rest is dark matter and dark energy—unseen, undetectable, and only inferred by their effects on gravity and expansion.
What are they?
Why can’t we detect them directly?
Are we missing whole dimensions of existence?
Despite advances in neuroscience, we still don’t know what consciousness is. We can measure brain activity, but not the subjective experience of being alive, aware, or in awe.
Is consciousness produced by the brain or does it exist outside of it?
While the physical aspect of our lives and our immortality is an ever-evolving dance between fact and mystery, our energetic immortality tells a much different story…
Our true legacy—our spiritual legacy—exists in our words, our actions, our impact. From a spiritual perspective, immortality isn’t about physically living forever. It’s about living in such a way that our impact and influence endures.
Think of it this way. Have you ever heard the name Plato? Quoted Shakespeare? Stood in front of a Van Gogh or read a book by Jane Austen? Have you laughed at George Carlin? Listened to a song by John Lennon? Have you danced to Whitney Houston or studied for an exam to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5? These souls are long gone from the physical realm, but their essence lives on in their creations.
If you live in a home that’s over 50 years old—I and a majority of my fellow New Yorkers certainly do—you are existing in a physical space built and designed by people who are likely no longer around. For example, my home was built in 1920. The people who laid the foundation are long gone. But their work remains. I walk through doors they built. I speak in rooms they designed. My family and I are connected to them every day.
When you take a moment to really reflect on it, your life has been shaped by so many people that you have never met and maybe by people who had passed away long before you ever took your first breath. And yet you “exist” alongside them as though they’re still right here.
We are all made of each other. Our lives are not isolated events, but continuations of stories written long before we arrived. And we, too, are writing stories that others will pick up and carry forward.
Author Donna Goddard said it beautifully:
“We are an accumulation of many people, even more so when unaware of it. Once aware, we can choose what to carry and what to relegate to history.”
And that’s what this reflection is really about.
Immortality isn’t about escaping death. It’s about living consciously. Recognizing that your words, your choices, and your energy matter. You’re leaving traces of yourself everywhere you go. In your children. In your work. In how you treat the barista. In how you respond to challenges.
So today, I invite you to ask yourself:
If I lived like I was immortal… what would I do differently today?
And then—don’t wait. Begin.
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