How Would You Live Your Last Days on Earth?
How would you Live Your Last Days on Earth?
Here’s our list of 10 ways to live every day as if you were running out of time.
Not one of us knows how many days/months/years we have left to live.
What if our time on Earth would end tomorrow? Or next week?
We don’t really like to spend a lot of time thinking about it, but our lives today will improve if we live for that future.
So that we live life mindfully, each minute and hour of each day.
And then, when we look back on our time, we can feel we lived each moment to the fullest.
How would you Live Your Last Days?
“Death Cafes” have been a thing the last 10-12 years, popping up all over the world.
They literally are a place to go to ponder the meaning of life and your mortality over a cup of tea and a piece of cake.
The meaning of life/death question is an ancient dilemma. All through the ages scholars and sages and gurus have spoken and written and meditated about mortality. Soren Kierkegaard saw it as a door to faith; the German phenomenologist Martin Heidegger believed the presence of death in our lives gives fresh meaning to the freedom of choice; however, Albert Camus thought death was pointless, so we should be happy while we can. And now, “a sage of the digital age,” we have Steve Jobs and his wisdom.
At 50 years of age, the man who created the Apple empire gave a commencement speech that went viral. He told the crowd that he looked into a mirror every morning and asked himself, “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I’m about to do today?”
“Remembering I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life,” he said, having been recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
As Christians, we have a responsibility to consider first the things God would have us do, and then all our days would surely be lived fully, as though they were our last.
What does living that way look like strategically, for those of us who like lists?
10 Ways to Fully Live Your Last Days
- Live each day as if it were our first. We would be filled with the newness and awesomeness of life, every single day.
- Be patient. Some beautiful things take years to come to fruition. You’d never plant a garden; a tree; or have children if you only lived for today. Live today for the future!
- Be with the people you love, often. The company of family and friends, with the fun and hugs and memories that come with it, can fill our hearts to overflowing.
- Say what’s on your heart. Say “I love you” often. Compliment freely. Don’t ever regret not sharing your kind thoughts in words, spoken or written.
- Be generous. If you’re the family cook, make their favorite meals often. Create fancy dinners just because.
- Reach out to others. Get outside that narrow comfort zone and make a new friend. Learn to know your neighbors so you can be there when they need help. Visit a nursing home with a bag full of board games.
- Be a donor. Money, time, blood. Register to donate your organs. Take comfort in knowing your death will give life to someone else.
- Never go to sleep with unforgiveness on your heart. Make that late night call. Acknowledge pain you caused others. Clear the slate so you can rest in peace.
- Explore new places. We can’t all fly off to countries we’ve never seen just because we want to, but we can explore nearby. Put on those hiking boots. Air up those bike tires. Pack a picnic lunch.
- Laugh everyday. Life is too short not to have fun. A good laugh is like walking a mile. Laughing is exhilarating, curative, and gives your face laugh crinkles instead of frown wrinkles.
Let’s keep the mindful life list going…
What would you add to the list?
