There are some in the "advice-instrustial complex" that give such advice. The Stoics have a technique where you imagine losing all you have, and this creates a feeling of gratitude for what you do have, and prepares you for losing it (as we all must do, in time). The Buddhists say that "Life is suffering".
But yes, this notion that your life is a one-shot, and you may very well outlive the potential for your life to achieve what you wanted, or thought it might, is not common advice. At times mean-spirited people will say that so-and-so celebrity is "over the hill" or "past their prime", but of course this applies (in a good faith way) to us all at some point. When the barb is targeted at someone who's earned a lot and is no longer earning it is less painful and socially acceptable than when targeted at someone who never knew success at all.
Nature is interesting because She seems to play around with lifetime duration quite a lot. Most life is very short lived; they are one-shots. But it doesn't matter because there are so many. But the few, the long-lived, the lives with so many resources behind them, She plays with these too. And honestly it's not clear that they are so successful. They tend to exist at the top of a food chain and accumulate damage over time, requiring sophisticated repair mechanisms. Such creatures are also more sensitive to environmental issues, accumulating poisons much faster than those before them in the food chain. Humans exist in this sensitive, precarious place in the ecosystem and I think we often outlive our usefulness, as evidenced by pre-industrial poor-houses stocked mostly by the old and infirm.
But yes, this notion that your life is a one-shot, and you may very well outlive the potential for your life to achieve what you wanted, or thought it might, is not common advice. At times mean-spirited people will say that so-and-so celebrity is "over the hill" or "past their prime", but of course this applies (in a good faith way) to us all at some point. When the barb is targeted at someone who's earned a lot and is no longer earning it is less painful and socially acceptable than when targeted at someone who never knew success at all.
Nature is interesting because She seems to play around with lifetime duration quite a lot. Most life is very short lived; they are one-shots. But it doesn't matter because there are so many. But the few, the long-lived, the lives with so many resources behind them, She plays with these too. And honestly it's not clear that they are so successful. They tend to exist at the top of a food chain and accumulate damage over time, requiring sophisticated repair mechanisms. Such creatures are also more sensitive to environmental issues, accumulating poisons much faster than those before them in the food chain. Humans exist in this sensitive, precarious place in the ecosystem and I think we often outlive our usefulness, as evidenced by pre-industrial poor-houses stocked mostly by the old and infirm.