Seventeen years is a strange period of time. It’s long enough that the sharp edges of grief soften, but short enough that the memory of a voice, a laugh, or a familiar phrase can still arrive uninvited, as clear as yesterday. Next week will mark seventeen years since my father passed away. I don’t write this to mourn him publicly or to turn personal loss into performance. I write it to celebrate his life and the life he gave me. I write also because his passing forced me into a reckoning that I’ve never quite stepped away from.
When you lose a parent, you don’t lose a person — you inherit a mirror. Mortality becomes unavoidable. You realize with startling clarity: if his time can end, so can mine. The clock is not theoretical. It is ticking, and it is ticking for me, for all of us.
The Stoics had a phrase for this: memento mori — remember you must die.
That realization — raw, painful, unrelenting — is what propelled me to start Gen Next. It wasn’t just about entrepreneurship, or chasing some market opportunity, or even building a business. It was about urgency. About refusing to drift through my days in the illusion that life would wait for me to “get ready.” My father’s absence left me with a question that still reverberates seventeen years later: What will you do with the time you’ve been given?
Grief as Teacher
We don’t often think of grief as a teacher. We try to outrun it, suppress it, or sentimentalize it. But in my experience, grief can also be a kind of curriculum. It teaches in a language we’d rather not learn — but the lessons are unforgettable.
The first lesson is humility. No matter how much we plan, save, strive, or strategize, we are not in control of the ultimate deadline. Death is indifferent to our ambitions.
The second lesson is urgency. If life is finite, then the question isn’t whether you’ll do something meaningful — it’s whether you’ll do it in time. Someday is not a strategy.
And the third lesson is love. When you strip away the posturing and possessions, what remains is who you showed up for, and who showed up for you. The rest is noise.
In Japan, there’s a phrase — mono no aware — the gentle awareness that beauty is fleeting. It doesn’t diminish life’s meaning; it sharpens it. Grief works the same way, forcing us to see that fragility is what makes love and presence matter.
I wasn’t ready for these lessons in 2008. But I inherited them. And I realized quickly that ignoring them would be its own kind of betrayal.
Building in the Shadow of Mortality
Starting Gen Next was, in many ways, an act of defiance. It was my way of saying: if time is limited, then I will use mine to build something that matters. I wanted to create an organization that wasn’t just a company but a vessel — one that could carry forward a belief in education as the most powerful lever we have to expand lives, connect cultures, and create futures.
I often say Gen Next was born from a sense of urgency. What I don’t always add is that the urgency came from death’s shadow. And in a paradox that only makes sense years later, that shadow created light.
Because urgency does something to you. It strips away excuses. It sharpens decisions. It makes you less tolerant of mediocrity — in yourself, in your institutions, in your society. It makes you bold enough to try, fail, try again, and keep going, because you no longer operate under the illusion that you have endless chances.
The Gift Hidden in the Loss
Seventeen years later, I’ve come to see my father’s passing not only as a loss but also as an inheritance. Not an inheritance of money or property, but of perspective. He left me with the gift of urgency. He left me with the awareness that mortality is not just an end but a motivator, a clarifier, a catalyst.
We often speak of inheritance as what is passed down — traditions, values, legacies. But I believe the most valuable inheritance we can receive is purpose. And sometimes it arrives not in a carefully tied package, but in the rupture of grief.
My father’s absence created a void, yes. But it also created a fire. That fire has fueled seventeen years of building, questioning, striving, and stumbling. It has kept me from settling into comfort. It has forced me, again and again, to ask: if today were the last day, would I be proud of how I spent it?
For All of Us
This isn’t just my story. Each of us carries some version of loss. Each of us has been shaken awake by mortality — our own or someone else’s. The question is what we do with it. Do we anesthetize ourselves with distractions? Do we retreat into cynicism? Or do we take the inheritance of purpose seriously and let it reorder our priorities?
I don’t believe you need to lose a loved one to feel this urgency. Look around — the headlines, the conflicts, the collapsing certainties of careers and nations. The world is already reminding us that tomorrow is not guaranteed.
Steve Jobs once said that remembering you’ll be dead soon is the best tool for making life’s big choices. It sounds brutal, but he was right: mortality cuts through the noise in a way nothing else can.
If you’re a student, maybe this means treating your education not as a series of boxes to tick but as a chance to cultivate curiosity and resilience that will outlast any job title.
If you’re an educator, maybe this means recognizing that your lectures and programs aren’t just curriculum delivery — they are lifelines, moments of inspiration that could alter a student’s trajectory.
If you’re a leader, maybe this means building not just for quarterly results but for long-term impact that will matter when you are no longer in the room.
Urgency doesn’t mean panic. It doesn’t mean rushing without reflection. It means recognizing that time is the one resource we cannot replenish, and choosing accordingly.
How to Carry Urgency Without Burning Out
If grief has taught me anything, it’s that urgency doesn’t have to mean frenzy. It can be practiced — even cultivated — in ways that honor both life’s limits and its possibilities. Here are a few ways to begin:
- Name the Lesson: When loss hits, pause and ask: what is this teaching me that I cannot afford to forget?
- Set the Clock: Don’t say “someday.” If it matters, give it a deadline. Mortality demands calendars.
- Reorder the Table: Look at your commitments and relationships. Who and what truly deserves your finite hours?
- Build Something That Outlasts You: It doesn’t need to be an empire. It could be a habit, a story, a community. But let your urgency create continuity.
- Let Gratitude Propel You: Not gratitude that numbs, but gratitude that fuels. Every day not yet taken is a day still given.
Seventeen Years, and Counting
Seventeen years later, I am still learning from the loss that started this journey. I still catch myself drifting and need to be jolted back into purpose. I still hear my father’s voice in quiet moments, reminding me that presence of mind — his favorite phrase — is not optional.
But I also see more clearly now what I could not see then: grief can break you, but it can also build you. Mortality can paralyze you, but it can also liberate you. And the most painful inheritance of all — the awareness that time is finite — can also be the most precious.
The Bhagavad Gita reminds us that death is certain, but life is where action matters. We can’t control the ending, only the choices in between.
So next week, when I mark seventeen years since my father’s passing, I will do so not only with sadness but with gratitude. Gratitude for the urgency he left me. Gratitude for the clarity that loss can bring. Gratitude for the inheritance of purpose.
One day, your name will be said for the last time. What will echo after that?
Seventeen years ago, I inherited urgency. My invitation to you is simple: don’t wait for loss to claim yours. Mortality is already the quiet companion in the room. Let it remind you that today is not practice.
Live, build, and love with urgency. That is the inheritance worth passing on.
I miss you, Dad.
Ex Cogitatione, Progressus
Girish
