My Next Breath: A Memoir

by Jeremy Renner

Information is what squelches fear. We are only afraid of the unknown. Ignorance, or lack of experience, is simply a lack of data. Not all information takes away fear, but any amount of it can dampen the insecurities and the killing unknowns of fear.

The essence of accountability and responsibility is this: If you do the work, it pays off—so just do the work.

Only I could determine the future path of my life. This was always true—why would it be any different after this incident? If we truly believe that we have no control, that the major (and minor) things that happen to us are foisted on us by some exterior force, and that we have no say over the direction our lives take, then what’s the point of any of it?

knew I’d do everything I used to do, because what is the alternative?

There’s one word for all this: hope. Hope is what everyone needs to exist in a state of joy and forward motion. If you don’t have hope, you’re going to die or kill yourself. To keep imagination alive, however weakly, is the essence of living a happy and fulfilled life.

My superpower, probably before the incident but certainly after it, was, “How do I not live in agony but find joy?” If the number one directive in our lives was to look for and find joy, I wonder what our lives would look like.

The only thing I can control in my life is my perspective. What I’ve come to understand is that life is simply my next step, my next breath. Perhaps some readers might think that’s too simple a philosophy, but I think life is that simple after all.

I remain keenly aware that I’ll never have a bad day for the rest of my life. And to learn all that, all I had to do was die.