My husband was 61 years old when he died. He never got to retire. He didn’t get to see his son get married. He didn’t get to see me become a writer or our trainwreck dog become a responsible canine citizen. He missed out on so much.
Up until he had his stroke when he was 60, I was certain he would outlive me. He was almost 10 years older, but he was fit and vibrant and had an indominable spirit. I think the same could be said about me, but whenever we competed against each other, he won, so I just figured he would win the long life contest.
Given that I had a stroke myself and almost died when I was 27, I’ve been keenly aware of how short life is for a long time, but every time a young(ish) person I know dies suddenly, it knocks the wind out of me. I had the wind knocked out of me this week when a colleague unexpectedly died.
Some people ask, What would you do if you knew you only had a year left to live? I hate this question. None of us know when we’ll die. You may not even get that year. I prefer to keep in mind that each day could be my last and not wait for a grim diagnosis to kick me in the ass.
It’s easy to lose sight of what really matters in the midst of productivity culture, which valorizes answering email quickly or multitasking or hustling all the time. I’ve never heard of someone on their deathbed saying they wish they had gotten to Inbox Zero. No, the things dying people regret are not spending enough quality time with loved ones, holding themselves to others’ expectations rather than their own, and putting too much energy into work.
For me, living each day as if it could be my last means a few things on a daily basis:
- Never being too busy to respond to a bid for connection. This means the laundry may not get done or the email may not get answered, but the friend or colleague who wants attention or affection will get it. This doesn’t mean I entertain every interruption—I’m actually very good at shooing people away when they are just bored or looking to vent pointlessly. But when I discern an authentic bid for connection, I drop everything.
- Being accountable when I screw up. My late husband and I grew up learning that an apology is a sign of weakness, which means we had some unnecessarily ugly arguments. In my husband’s last year, we both learned to forgive, and it was a gift to both of us. Once we learned how to forgive, we were eager to do it and forgave each other all the time—we began competing to take responsibility for something rather than to blame the other. It was magical and I continue to apologize easily.
- Doing nothing regularly. Productivity culture makes us think we need to always be doing something, that being busy is intrinsically a good thing. But this is a myth. I have a wonderful friend who taught me the value of staring into space, preferably from a hammock. What could be more important than luxuriating in the pleasure of simply being alive? For more inspiration, I recommend Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing. For something shorter, try my first favorite poem, James Wright’s “Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota.”
- Seeing time for what it is. People often say that time is money, but I think it makes more sense to realize that time is life. You only get a finite amount of it, and unlike with money, you have no way of knowing what your balance is. You can’t get a loan and there are no refunds.
- Seeing money for what it is. I recently read Die with Zero by Bill Perkins, which freed me up to stop worrying about saving every penny for retirement and thinking instead about using my money for experiences and creating memories with loved ones. Instead of planning to leave a large gift to organizations that matter to me when I die, I give them money now.
Email will not keep me from seizing the day!
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