Don't Live Every Day Like Your Last

Image Source

What would you do tomorrow if it was your last day alive? I want you to think about it seriously. 

Your last day likely involves a list of your favorite activities, some parting words, and an overall magnificent time. Living a day like your last makes it more meaningful, more enjoyable, and more liberating. After all, you have to make your final moments of life count, right? Contrast this with what you would do tomorrow if it was your last day, unbeknownst to you. I bet you would be less happy, engage in humdrum activities most of the day, and not even consider the value of your relationships. Sorry to be harsh, but that’s fairly realistic. 

It’s because restrictions, such as scarcity and urgency, create value. Deadlines, for example, propel people to work quickly. Put a deadline on your life, and you will feel the same urgency. Furthermore, the last day you’re alive is the last time you can experience everything. No more fun times with family and friends. No more binging your favorite show. No more happiness, sadness, anger, triumph—you name it. This scarcity and urgency, combined with the shock of seriously contemplating your demise for possibly the first time in years, is exhilarating. 

This purportedly entails that scaling an ideal "last day" to an ideal life is profoundly beneficial. Scarcity loses virtually its entire value because you can reasonably assume that almost everything you experience can be experienced again. In the modern world, many of us have the security that we will probably die of natural causes and be able to partake in our favorite activities routinely, which is wonderful. How much would you like your favorite movie if you watched it every day (probably not much because of minimal scarcity)? Likewise, existential urgency is practically nonexistent in most of our lives until old age. Even for activities that demand youthful vigor, urgency appears after several years. And finally, it is much less enthralling to know you have decades ahead of you rather than a single day. 

I ought to also mention that few of us can afford to spend extravagantly every day. Some elites do, but sociopsychological phenomena like the hedonistic treadmill diminish the pleasure that comes from luxury (i.e., it’s fruitless). 

Instead of living every day as if it were your last, you should live with gusto. Live with fewer inhibitions not because you might die soon, but because it’s more fun. Cherish the assets in your life not because you may lose them, but because that’s how you appreciate them more. Operating on this frivolous maxim of fatalism distracts us from what really adds value to our lives, and we need to rechannel those beliefs if we want to live happily.