"Write your own obituary," the professor told his students. "What do you want your obituary to look like?"

In other words, what kind of life do you want to live? It is a question that underlies "The Bucket List," the new film starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman as two men who make a list of all the things they want to do before they kick the bucket.

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So what do the philosophers tell us about the path to happiness and meaning? "Heidegger said the only way to really feel alive is to be constantly aware that you're going to die," replies Klein, then adds with a laugh: "In other words, you haven't really lived until you've thought about death all the time." The point, he says, is that "if you think you have an infinite amount of time, it's easier not to appreciate the here and now. We spend a lot of time postponing our satisfactions."

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