A dog, a snow leopard, and you.
A dog barking past midnight somewhere in the mountains of the Himalaya is a sign of life, as much as a snow leopard sneaking behind the dog is a sign of life. Life is only until it is and you must find a way to live it the way you want before it comes to an end — it was.
Like how the dog lives his life by barking at the nothingness of the night before perhaps getting devoured by the snow leopard. Like how the snow leopard lives his life by stealthily sneaking around before perhaps starving to death.
Such is life and it is not forever. So you must live it fully and happily, you must make it as extraordinary as possible. You must be open to it completely and truthfully, and never turn into a rock.
As Aeschylus put it so beautifully in the 5th century BC:
Why grieve in advance? Whatever turns
up, I hope it’s happy—
— Aeschylus (from the play Agamemnon; translated by Anne Carson)
Never grieve in advance, never be frightened.