Recognize it.

"Living things are dying, dying, dying all the time, and others are taking their place, not even knowing they are taking the place of things that have died." Joyce Carol Oates, We Were the Mulvaneys

We are made of the things of the earth, we live on the earth, we die, and our bodies go back into it. This is the cycle of life. So often we are then to ponder, what is the point of the part in which we live on the earth? Our hearts beat and pump on average 1,900 gallons of blood through our bodies everyday. And then one day, they stop beating and they do not start again.

Talk of death is generally regarded as macabre and avoided, but when we attend a funeral or hear of those who died, we are left to consider our own mortality.
If no one inhabited the planet, it would still spin.
Before you are born, you are nonexistent. After you die, you will never be human again on this earth. You were not, you are, then you are not again.
You will never answer the phone, be in another picture, open any mail, give any more gifts, touch someone's hand,  cash another check, have any more children, set any records, sign any documents... again.

A precious jewel is precious because of it's scarcity. It is not disheartening to consider mortality, but refreshing to know that there is life. Life is limited, but it is a gem.