If you live each day as if it was your last, someday, you’ll most certainly be right.

That's the quote Steve Jobs chose to begin telling the third story about the pivotal points in his life he shared with Stanford graduates in 2005. In our society, which is so averse to talking about death and dying, this speech caught my eye early in my work with the Death with Dignity National Center.

As I recall, I was impressed such a public figure discussed this taboo subject at this large event. I shared it on Twitter and perhaps on Facebook before filing it away in my memory as one discussion about death, dying, and how getting close to it changes one's perspective.

This memory popped back up when I heard Jobs died. I'll miss his brilliance, clarity in vision, and bravery to take leaps which transformed the way we think of computers, cell phones, and the music industry. Though I use devices he helped pioneer on a daily basis, hearing his name triggered the thought of how unusual it is for such a public figure to speak so openly and candidly about death.

It's a subject he appears more at ease with than many. For years he often reflected:

If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I'm about to do today. Whenever the answer has been "no" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

This daily consideration became more real for Jobs in 2004 when he was told he had a cancerous tumor on his pancreas and for a short time lived with the thought that he had three to six months to live. (After a biopsy he learned he had a rare form of operable pancreatic cancer.) About a year after intimately facing death he had the following to offer the 2005 graduating class of Stanford:

Having lived through it I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it.

And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you. But some day not too long from now you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true.

Your time is limited; so, don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition; they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

What speeches about death and dying have left an impression on you? Please share your stories and video links in the comments section below.