Living With Deadlines

We usually think of deadlines as something tied to work: the report due Friday, the project launch next month, the emails piling up in our inbox. But there’s another kind of deadline we don’t often acknowledge—the one that comes with being human. The truth is, we’re all living with the ultimate deadline: mortality.

This idea runs through my novel Borrowed Time. The story follows characters navigating kidney failure, dialysis, and the uncertain hope of a transplant. For them, time isn’t an abstract concept. It’s a daily reality, measured in lab results, treatment hours, and the length of a waiting list that determines who gets more days and who doesn’t.

What struck me while writing is how differently choices look when time is no longer guaranteed. Suddenly, the small moments matter more than the big plans. A laugh with a friend outweighs a perfect resume. Saying “I love you” today is more important than waiting for the right occasion. Living with deadlines shifts the way we measure value—it brings life into sharper focus.

The paradox is that when we confront mortality, we don’t collapse under its weight. Instead, life expands. Gratitude surfaces more easily. Courage feels less like a distant ideal and more like a daily act: getting out of bed, choosing hope, reaching for joy even when fear lurks close by.

Borrowed Time is a story about survival, but it’s also a mirror for all of us. You don’t need a medical crisis to live as though time is precious. The deadline is always there, even if it’s invisible. The question is how we let it shape us.

So here’s the challenge I took from writing—and the one I leave with you: Don’t wait for crisis to wake you up. Live with the awareness that time is finite. Let that awareness change the way you spend your days, the way you love your people, the way you chase your dreams. Because in the end, mortality isn’t just a deadline—it’s also the reason life feels so urgent, so beautiful, and so worth living.