Jay Jackson
Chairman & CEO
Arianna Huffington wrote something recently that stopped me in my tracks: “Death is one of the most powerful tools we have to help us navigate life.”
In her TIME op-ed, she points out the paradox of our longevity obsession. Silicon Valley is pouring billions into anti-aging research. World leaders are casually discussing 150-year lifespans. The longevity economy is projected to hit $27 trillion by 2030. And yet, she argues, “the danger of chasing the false promise of immortality is that we lose access to the very real and tangible lessons of mortality.”
She’s right. But I’d take it further: we’re optimizing for the wrong metric entirely.
Healthspan Over Lifespan
The longevity conversation is almost entirely about adding years to life. But nobody’s asking the more important question: what kind of years are we adding?
You can extend your lifespan to 100 while spending the last 20 years managing chronic disease, losing independence, and disconnected from what makes life worth living. Or you can focus on healthspan—the period of life spent in good health, free from the disabilities and diseases of aging—and optimize for quality over quantity.
Huffington quotes death doula Alua Arthur: “When I am thinking about my death, I can see very clearly who I want to be, how I want to spend my time, what I want to leave behind, and what I value.” That clarity is the gift. Mortality focuses the mind on what actually matters.
At Abacus, much of our work transforming the way people think about their futures rests on this switch from asking “how long will you live?” to asking “what do you want those years to look like?” The financial plan that gets you to 100 means nothing if you’re spending those decades isolated, unhealthy, and disconnected from purpose.
What the Blue Zones Actually Teach Us
Here’s what’s fascinating about the Blue Zones—those pockets of the world where people routinely live into their 100s: they’re not the richest places on earth. Okinawa isn’t Silicon Valley. Sardinia isn’t Manhattan. Ikaria isn’t Monaco.
What they have in common isn’t wealth. It’s community. It’s connection. It’s a sense of purpose that doesn’t evaporate at retirement age. It’s daily movement woven into life rather than optimized workouts. It’s meals shared with people you care about rather than macros calculated alone.
The people living longest aren’t the ones obsessed with not dying. They’re the ones most fully engaged with living.
Huffington cites research showing that at the end of life, our values change. We don’t crave more status or more things. We crave more connection. The tragedy is how many people wait until they’re dying to figure that out.
The Freedom in Acceptance
There’s a strange freedom that comes from truly accepting your mortality. Not in a morbid way, but in the way ancient Romans meant when they carved “Memento Mori”—remember death—into statues and trees.
When you internalize that your time is genuinely limited, it clarifies decisions. That career move you’ve been avoiding because it’s risky? The relationship you need to repair? The dream you keep putting off until “someday”? Mortality makes someday now.
As Huffington writes, “it’s like we’re throwing away food, knowing that eventually you’re going to be starving.” Every day spent not fully living is a day you’ll never get back.
Planning for the Right Thing
This is why my approach to planning for the future goes beyond spreadsheets and portfolios. Yes, you need the money to last. But more importantly, you need a plan for what those years will contain. Who will you spend time with? What will give you purpose? How will you stay connected to community?
The goal isn’t to live forever. It’s to live well for however long you have.
As Huffington concludes, we’re entering “a potentially dramatic turning point in the human condition.” But the opportunity isn’t in defeating death—it’s in learning from it. In letting mortality teach us how to actually live.
Because the world death rate is still holding steady at 100%. The only question is what we do with the time we have.
