One of the more striking quotes I have ever come across is the title of this piece. Among the vast depository of incredibly insightful thoughts that some of our great thinkers have had over the centuries, this one somehow resonated with me.
If you follow this small nugget of advice you will certainly see the world differently. Think about it for a second. If you had 24 hours left to live, what would you do, who would you want to spend it with, what would you say? What would you think? How would you act? Or, would you waste the time focusing on all the things you never accomplished, never learned, people you never met? And now it was too late, so you spend the time you had left wallowing in your sorrow. Is that how you would want to spend the last hours of your life?
A friend of mine died of a heart attack last year. He sat down to watch TV and BAM! He didn’t know what hit him. From one moment to the next. Lights out. I started thinking about this question and wondered if he knew what was to happen the day before what would he have done differently? The unfortunate thing is he didn’t have that choice, but the rest of us do.
Life is learning. If you stop learning, you stop moving forward. You stop growing as a person. Life is made up of experiences from which we learn and you only have a limited time to make as many happen as you can. Learning as if you were to live forever is to be inquisitive about all you can. Get curious and discover. There is so much to learn, so learn as if you were to live forever.
If you keep this in mind and have the mindset that you are privileged to be here, and it could all end tomorrow, you may change your focus. You may reassess what is really worth spending your time on. Do you want to be complaining and obsessing about the government on your last day? Do you want to be preoccupied over what you don’t have or be grateful for what you do have?