Last month in my office, I was working on 2 projects. One had a deadline and another did not. Three week later, I realized that I was paying more attention to the project with the deadline since I had less time for it.
That got me thinking about death. Instead of a deadline, what if I was constantly aware of my death line? If I know that I'm going to die tomorrow, would I not be more engaged with life?
Imagine that you just have 6 months to live. You might drop half the things you are doing. If I have stocks in my account, I will transfer them to a loved one and ask them to worry about it. :) I will drop that fight or the cold war I was having with someone close. I will not dream about buying a house on EMI that might keep me working against my will for coming 30 years. Instead, I will spend the time with family, friends, meet everyone who are at a far distance and whom I've not been able to meet because all these years I thought, I will go there next year for sure.
I've heard so many stories of people living more for more than 2 years even when their doctor tells them, "You have got 6 months max". Is it possible that a person starts living and enjoying every moment only when they know that they only have so much of time to live? Is it possible that this happiness and this living from moment to moment makes the person live more happily and that fuels into that extended time and satisfaction?
If I have a death-line, I could back calculate and really think what I need to do today or may be do what Steve Jobs did, look in the mirror and ask myself "If this was the last day I lived, would I still do what I'm doing?" And if the answer is "No" for a series of day, I could change the course of what I'm doing.
Intellectually, having a death-line feels tricky and trippy because it can also create a sense of fear and scarcity. Still, I would argue that it's better than laziness and procrastination.
So, do you have a death line? (Oops, I skipped a beat, when I wrote this very line. :))
That got me thinking about death. Instead of a deadline, what if I was constantly aware of my death line? If I know that I'm going to die tomorrow, would I not be more engaged with life?
Imagine that you just have 6 months to live. You might drop half the things you are doing. If I have stocks in my account, I will transfer them to a loved one and ask them to worry about it. :) I will drop that fight or the cold war I was having with someone close. I will not dream about buying a house on EMI that might keep me working against my will for coming 30 years. Instead, I will spend the time with family, friends, meet everyone who are at a far distance and whom I've not been able to meet because all these years I thought, I will go there next year for sure.
I've heard so many stories of people living more for more than 2 years even when their doctor tells them, "You have got 6 months max". Is it possible that a person starts living and enjoying every moment only when they know that they only have so much of time to live? Is it possible that this happiness and this living from moment to moment makes the person live more happily and that fuels into that extended time and satisfaction?
If I have a death-line, I could back calculate and really think what I need to do today or may be do what Steve Jobs did, look in the mirror and ask myself "If this was the last day I lived, would I still do what I'm doing?" And if the answer is "No" for a series of day, I could change the course of what I'm doing.
Intellectually, having a death-line feels tricky and trippy because it can also create a sense of fear and scarcity. Still, I would argue that it's better than laziness and procrastination.
So, do you have a death line? (Oops, I skipped a beat, when I wrote this very line. :))
Reflections
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