Live Each Day As Your Last Knowing You’ll Live To 100
39. Live each day as your last knowing you’ll live to 100.
This Tool seems to contradict itself a little bit. The natural question would be how do you do this and why do both? I think that is a fair question. Let’s analyze the first part of the statement in living each day as our last. When we approach the day in this way, it is another way of saying live life to its fullest.
Simply think about what you would do with your final days or weeks if you knew that to be true. You would live life fuller and not let any moment pass you by. You would be so much more observant of your surroundings and so much more likely to do things instead of sitting there and letting life pass you by. You would be more in present time consciousness. You would be much more likely to be fully engaged in what you were doing at that moment, which in reality is how you should be all the time. By approaching each day as your last, you increase the probability of maximizing your life and will be more likely to do the things that bring you happiness and focus more on what you consider success and wealth.
On the other hand, we need to know that the likelihood of living longer than you ever imagined is extremely real. People are living longer and longer, so we must make our way to this milestone by doing daily rituals that ensure us arriving in our later years with multitudes of wins under our belt and the ability to sustain our independence with age. Many believe they don’t want to live that long because they don’t want to be a burden and that those later years can be filled mostly with pain and problems. Planting that belief in your head almost ensures that you will cultivate that outcome.
Start by thinking now about how you will hit that 100 year milestone in a way that will wow the people around you. To arrive at that destination intact, we need to start believing we are going to be there. Knowing that, what habits and attitudes would we change now? A common theme amongst people who live to 90 plus is that if they had known they would live that long, they would have taken better care of themselves.
So we can do both. We can get the most out of life by acting like we only have so much time to leave our legacy while putting strategies in place to ensure we reach old age with the ability to live a wonderful lifestyle. Or I guess you could do the opposite, keep thinking you have time to do it later, then arrive at 100 wishing you had done more when you were younger and that you had taken better care of yourself. Come on, the answer is obvious. So if you think this reminder can help, throw it in your Tool section. You will get more out of your time in the present while getting ready for the inevitable time you will ultimately have in the future.