Dying Today, Living for Tomorrow
Considering death creates powerful perspectives and clarity in our lives.
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Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
Mahatma Gandhi
If we knew today was our last day, what would we do? Who would we call? What would we say?
Most of us don’t think about death. It’s considered morbid or taboo, but when we do examine our lives through the lens of death, all the bullshit fades away and we‘re able to see what’s important and what’s not. In an instant difficult decisions become clear, we can forgive others, and we feel a sense of urgency to do things we’ve always dreamt of.
Considering death is powerful but it often creates a frantic state of mind in which we feel like we need to live every day like it’s our last.
This perspective creates urgency to improve our lives, but if we only consider death as a filter for our actions, we forget about something very important: tomorrow.
Living to Die and Dying to Live
Living with this level of urgency makes everything clear, but it also leads to reckless behavior and short-term thinking.
If we always lived like we were about to die, we would eat a lot more ice cream and burn a lot of bridges. We can become at peace with death by living this way, but only focusing on death means we don’t have anything to live for.
Making every decision with self-preservation in mind is just as dangerous. When we only consider the future, we become overly conservative. This long-term thinking eliminates risk and gives us a reason to live for the future, but it makes it impossible for us to be at peace with dying today because there is still so much we haven’t done.
To live a full and balanced life we should strive to be at peace with dying today while maintaining a fierce desire to keep living for tomorrow.
Balancing Life and Death
Finding peace in dying today doesn’t stem from achieving everything we’ve ever wanted in life. Instead, it arises from confidence and pride in how we’ve lived up to this moment. Rather than regretting things left undone, we should concentrate on becoming the person we aspire to be.
If we feel we should have treated someone better, apologized, or made a different choice, then we should act on those thoughts. Each time we end a conversation, we might ask ourselves: Would I be okay if this were my last interaction with this person? If not, we need to make it right.
Thinking about death helps us live with greater intentionality and make changes before it’s too late.
Equally important is asking whether our current choices will make us proud in a year. The urgency of death will push us to seize opportunities and take risks, but we must balance these considerations with the desire to create a sustainable life for ourselves.
Using death as motivation to take action now and life as motivation to create a better future, we can become proud enough of ourselves to be okay with dying today while maintaining a relentless pursuit to continue living and improving ourselves.
A meaningful and fulfilling life is a constant struggle between these two extremes and the more we can recognize and reflect on how we’re being pulled in each direction the easier it is to balance them effectively.
Prompts
If you knew you were going to die next week, who would you spend time with and what do you need to fix?
Do you live your life conservatively with a focus on the future or aggressively like every day is your last?
Would you be okay if you died today? If not, why?
Deep Dive
The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday
Meditations on the art of living from Stoic philosophers.
Thanks for reading! I’ll see you next Sunday.
Kevin