I like it when my lawn is freshly mown. I like when my doors don’t squeak. I like it when my car is washed. But I also like to play golf, ride my bike and go kayaking and something’s gotta give.
Call me hedonistic but when I examine my priorities, play-time is right up there. I suppose it would (and perhaps should) be different if I didn’t have a full-time job and a part-time private practice. Unfortunately my professional obligations leave less free time than I would prefer.
The lawn gets squeezed out.
Play is only one part of a balanced life. Another is the time we make for others – family and friends. But most of us tend to respond to outside influences rather than step back and think about what is important to us and take some control over what we want to prioritize.
In discussing quality of life with many clients, I often ask people to imagine a finite time left to live and then ask them what they would do in that time. This simple question often yields surprising results. Most people would be doing things very differently.
Things would of course be different if we knew we would die old versus young (If I knew I had less than a year to live I would probably alternate meals between Schwartz’s smoked meat sandwiches and hot Italian sausage subs at Momesso’s. Cholesterol be damned!) Not knowing the date of our deaths means we cannot live only “in the moment” and must balance short and long-term goals. Nevertheless, whether we have many years of life or just a few weeks left, we would probably all make some changes.
I wrote an earlier post about a similar issue a few years ago (Prolonging life). Here is something I published two weeks ago:
Fortune cookies of death
(Source: Le biscuit chinois et la mort. Journal Métro, June 14, 2011)
How would you react if there existed a fortune cookie with the precise date of your death printed on the little slip of paper inside? Imagine that we each were given one cookie. What would we do with the information inside?
Ripe old age, a few years, a few weeks
If the fortune cookie revealed a date way off into the future guaranteeing we would live to a ripe old age, would we change anything? Would we consider an entirely new career? Would we become physically active so as to remain healthy for those years? Would we embark on adventures or would we just sit back and accept the status quo?
What if the fortune revealed that we had but four years to live? Would we now embark on those adventures? Would we try to reconcile conflicts with loved ones? Would nothing change? I doubt it.
Now what if our fortune revealed we were going to die in four weeks? What then? I have actually asked many people this question throughout my career. Everyone says more or less the same thing. They would live those last few weeks to the fullest – seeing loved ones, travelling, doing memorable things. Very few say they would spend time dusting furniture or weeding lawns. It’s not that mundane tasks should be ignored. It’s just that in the grander scheme of things they would not represent top priorities.
The blank slip – an opportunity
Now let’s suppose our slip of paper was blank. Death remains inevitable. The only missing information is the exact moment of that death. Should anything really change? The inevitability of death can be feared or it can be seen as an opportunity, a chance to re-examine our priorities and find a balance between short and long-term goals.
The concept of living life to the fullest sounds nice but very few of us stop to think about how to achieve this goal. Thinking about the end scares many people but even those with strong death phobias would opt for more active lives if they knew their exact date with destiny. They would connect more with others rather than wait for others to take initiatives, they would pursue their passions rather than talk about their ideas, and they would also hear music and see nature in a very different light.
In reality most of us get the cookie with the blank slip. But not knowing the precise date of our deaths does not mean we cannot act like we do and take full advantage of time we have.
Tagged as death, life expectancy, living life to the fullest, quality of life.
Posted in Life.
Posted on 28 Jun 2011
