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If you could somehow look into the future, and know the day you were going to die, what would you do differently?
Would you make the most of every day? Would you be a better person? Would you pursue every dream if you had the time?
Or, let’s say, you woke up this morning, and had a sense that this would be the day that you died. (Think about the movie, “American Beauty”) What would you do?
The passing this weekend of two extraordinary men makes us all think of our mortality. Perhaps Isaac Hayes heard of Bernie Mac’s passing on Saturday and thought, “Wow, so young, so much going for him and so much to live for…and just like that, he’s gone.” It’s unlikely that he thought, “Tomorrow will be my last day on Earth.” Instead, he went to his treadmill and worked out and it was his last day. Just like that.
Life on Earth is this complex mystery. We know we are born and we know we will die. We have no idea how humans really got here, why they are here, and where we are going once we leave here. Science and all of the major religions have their theories and beliefs. Faith in something good is a great thing. Nevertheless, no one can predict how long anyone will be on this planet.
We have no idea how long our lives will be once we are here. It could be a day, a week, a month, a year, 20 years, 50 years, 98 years, or 105 years.
We have no idea what will happen in five minutes from now. We can plan for tomorrow or for five years down the road or for our retirement. But we know it’s just building castles in the sky because we don’t know what will happen.
It seems as though we’ve each been allotted a certain amount of time on this planet, in this lifetime. And, when it’s our time to go, money and power can’t save us, beauty and fame will not keep us here a day longer. Nor will our religious faith.
So, if we know that each day we are given could be our last, what would be the last thing(s) you’d want to say or do?
Apologize to someone for wittingly causing them pain or suffering? Return something stolen? Get revenge on an enemy? How do you want to leave things?
Here’s an idea. Every morning upon awakening, make a To Do Life List. It can be short, or it can be as long as you wish. List the things that you feel need to be said or done, just in case, this is your last day.
Example:
1) Call a friend or loved one and say, “I love you”, or “I’m sorry”. Or, get something off your chest that has been bothering you. It’s never too late if you’re still here. It doesn’t matter how much time has gone by since the incident. Maybe you did something or someone did something to you years ago.
If you still remember it, it’s still bothering you and you need closure. That is the ultimate cleansing. It’s better than an enema!
2) Don’t wait for tomorrow to start the diet, or exercise program. Put the pancakes and sausages and Latte back, and stock up (as best you can) on fruit, and herbal tea, and fresh vegetables, and tofu. If you woke up, you’re still alive, so walk around the block before work. Or do five minutes of stretching. Enroll in an exercise or yoga class. And GO.
3) Something you always dreamed of doing? Taking a trip, or learning a new hobby? Look into it. Today. Find out how much it’s going to cost and enroll in a class or make a reservation. Make plans to move to a new city, or a new country, if that is what you’ve always dreamed of. Experience it by doing it. Now.
Make the list and check something off every day that you get a chance at this living thing. Just like you do at your job. You know the things you have to get done, you make priorities and do as much as you can, and whatever is left over, you plan to do tomorrow.
Life is not like that. Life priorities take front and center stage. Cleanse your life. Anything lingering from the past is just baggage that you don’t want to take with you to wherever we go.
The past is more transparent than Air. You can feel Air, but you can’t touch the past, or see it, or talk to it. It’s gone. A mirage. You can only hold a changing picture of it in your imagination. Where it can either do a lot of damage by keeping you prisoner to it, or block you from experiencing the new joy of Now.
Remember how God’s Angel told Lot and his family not to look back at the destruction of the City, and Lot’s wife looked back and she turned to Stone? She looked back and stayed in the past.
For all we know, we may not go anywhere when we die. Metaphysics suggest that life could end in this body and our spirits could just attach to another body. (Think about the Warren Beatty film “Heaven Can Wait”?; or breath stops in this body and starts again in the same body in another version of this same reality, and keeps going on as if nothing happened. Quantum Physics sort of describes this as the Many World Theory.
Finally, can you imagine doing something so horrible and regretful and not getting a chance to make amends?
We often think, I’ll ask God to forgive me for that before I die. Or we ask God to forgive us, but we don’t forgive ourselves because we don’t correct it while we have a chance. And it’s not just that we may die, but the person we did the thing to may die. Having to live with the remorse of not clearing that horrible thing up would be like turning to Stone.
When my Dad was 89 years old, he didn’t want to move into an Assisted Living place because he didn’t want to be around “old people who were dying”. He lived until he was 96 and although his body was failing him in many ways, in his mind, he believed he was still young. And then his mind started to go. Dementia set in.
I like the idea that wherever he is, he is a young man, strong, virile, excited about life, full of energy. That he left this life with no past regrets, a new beginning, with no baggage.
To live our lives fully, purposefully, meaningfully, peacefully, is knowing ahead of time, that we will leave with no baggage.
It makes a richer NOW.