Cells must perpetually decide on three big choices in life: to grow, to divide or to die. These system-level decisions are the output of a complex and still very poorly understood molecular algorithm, which is built from many different sub-routines. Biochemical and genetic insights, sometimes coupled with good fortune, have illuminated key individual steps in the networks that dictate growth, division and death. Increasingly, the complex relationships between these discrete steps have begun to emerge from the convolved mists of evolutionary construction. A building ueber-theme is the unexpectedly deep integration of division, growth and death not only with each other, but with cellular metabolism. As covered in this Current Opinion in Cell Biology, this full-on system-wide view of the cell is poised to address both the how and why of big decisions in the life of a cell.