Don't Forget to Live Your Life Before You Die

Imagine your life’s toils and labours coming to nothing when you are finally free to enjoy them.

Imagine that you spent your working life staring at a cubicle wall as you dreamed about your retirement, only to find yourself unable to do anything when the glorious time finally came. Imagine that you don’t even reach the age of retirement and that your savings and possessions are unceremoniously handed off to your next of kin, while your ashes are cast off into the literal wind.

Depressed yet?

Let me explain why I’ve chosen to bring you down from your possible high this morning: life is short. Yes, it’s unbearably cliche, but it’s the whole truth in one tidy little colloquialism. Life is short and has the potential to be so sweet, yet so many of us waste it. It’s a dismal but definite reality.

Recently, a YouTuber I follow had a scary cancer diagnosis. He is only 26, which is undeniably an age too young to die, and I was scared for him. I prayed for him through every surgery and treatment, too, and not just because he’s so young.

I prayed because this remarkable young man has amassed a following in the millions by helping others. He’s spent his young life living large and living to bring joy to others, and that’s someone worth emulating. That’s someone who is worth saving.

And he was saved. He’s cancer-free now, and since his victory a few weeks ago, he’s raised more than $150,000 for cancer research.

I watched him literally jump for joy after he found out, hallooing with genuine happiness and relief, and the expression on his face brought me to tears. This is a young man who should never have had to think about chemo or surgeries. This was a young man who, by all rights, should be out partying and sewing a few wild oats, but instead was dealing with hair loss and worrying about losing his life.

He’s back to work on his channel, but there’s a noticable difference in his demeanor. He’s lighter; he’s happy. He knows he’s escaped with his life (and his hair!) and that the idea of a life ahead of him can be freely enjoyed once more. Not all of us get to do that. Not all of us have that happy ending — or in his case, a happy beginning.

Living for retirement

Someone very dear to someone very dear to me passed away before she had time to enjoy her life.

She’d spent her life working hard at a job she detested, and she had a nice little nest egg for her family when she would finally retire. I can only assume, based on what I have been told about her, that she wanted a sweet little acreage close to a body of water to frequently dip her toes in. That she wanted to often be with her grandchildren, and to live in a way that she could experience the sand between her toes whenever she pleased. She wanted to be free of financial burdens and have something to give to her family when she passed away, preferably after living a long life and enjoying her spoils.

But then she got sick. She watched the world pass through her fingers and her dreams disappear. She passed away before she got to really enjoy her later years, and I think of her daily. I think of how many of us trudge through the muck and mud of our 9-to-5s with the mirage of that happy retired life in the distance.

I think of how many of us will never make it.

Taken

I frequently think about someone I knew through work years ago, who’d spent decades working for our company and retired the second she hit the age of 65. She’d worked administrative jobs she hated for very little money, but with frequent health issues, she couldn’t deny the incredible benefits packages we received.

A week after her retirement party, she was dead. A week.

She hadn’t even received her final paycheck. She was still packing her things to move to the farmhouse she’d purchased with her life’s earnings, after paying off a mortgage for a home that had terrible insulation and questionable plumbing. A home she detested.

I hate that she missed out on her retirement. I hate that I frequently think of my own retirement dreams: me, puttering around in a beautiful English garden, small but cozy and easy for me to move around in. Me, baking perfect cookies for my perfect grandchildren, living a perfect life that I earned after 45+ years of toiling away in jobs I didn’t really love.

Who’s to say that I’ll even make it there? Dreaming for the future while you detest the present is a dangerous pastime.

Live for now

Life is short.

I know it’s cliche but that doesn’t make it any less true. And while for some, like my 96 year old grandmother, life isn’t necessarily short, it’s still a bad idea to live for your twilight years. My grandmother is a great example, actually — there are many things that she can’t enjoy. Sure, she can watch the deer from her bedroom window in the mornings and delight in their graceful, peaceful ways. She can marvel at the fawns and how they never wander too far from their mothers. She enjoys the sunny mornings of springtime and has a comfortable life with family.

She has her daily routine: banana for breakfast, tea, reading the morning news. But she isn’t very mobile — who is at 96 — and her wheelchair makes life harder. She’s on oxygen and lives in constant fear of not being able to breathe. She is still one of the lucky ones, of course, with all of her faculties relatively intact. She’s sharp and is still one of the wisest people I know.

But she lives her days knowing that they are indubitably numbered, and I don’t know anyone who can be envious of that.

I think my grandmother, who has frequently insisted that we “don’t get as old” as she has become, would fervently suggest that we live our lives in the moment. Live for the now, love our families with all our might, and don’t put things off for a future that may never come.

Balance is all things in moderation

Does any of this mean that we should squander away our life’s savings on food and booze and fun and frivolity?

Probably not. But you do you.

For myself, I think I’ll try to adopt my Dad’s take on life: all things in moderation. I can’t remember when his words first impacted my life, but they are often in the back of my mind.

For example: cookies. Gosh. I do love cookies. I love them so much that one box is no match for me — I’ll gobble them up in one sitting, and then deal with the guilt and upset stomach afterwards with far too much forbearance than I rightfully should. I know that cookies are full of sugar. I know they’ll make my stomach hurt and will throw off my glucose balances all day long, but damn — I love those little morsels of delight.

But in moderation? Cookies are fine. With a dose of moderation, I can enjoy life’s delicacies. The same works for so many areas of our lives: when we were kids, for example, my family never traveled to places like Disneyland or Mexico. We took a long, beautiful drive out to British Columbia, all the way to the ocean. We stayed with my grandfather, who had a magical property that we could explore and let our imaginations take flight.

It had some apple trees and therefore immediately became a vast orchard in my mind. A small patch of woods with curiously shaped stones beyond the house became an enchanted forest full of fairies and dwarves and mystery.

There was a pond that housed huge goldfish (whales) and frogs (magical toads) and was shaded by an enormous weeping willow tree (the very tree that held the entrance to Wonderland.)

My family’s trips over summer vacation were filled with my own imagination, and my dad’s ability to practice moderation in our lives always opened those doors for us. Moderation is key to a happy life, I’m convinced.

Living

Fortunately, my health is stable. I’m 40 now, and I have a great family history with no cancer and grew up with health-minded parents. I should, by all accounts, live to a respectable old age.

But tomorrow I might get struck down by a bus.

Earthly life is not a guarantee. We might all get cancer and die miserably. We might die before our perceived time. There’s no sense in throwing everything into a retirement plan that might never see the light of day, a plan that might merely be auctioned off at an estate sale, a plan that fades away before it is ever truly lived.

Instead, I say we live more in the moment. You can still save — should still save — some money for your future and for the future of your children, but there are still opportunities to create some magic in your life now. Take the family trips to visit your parents. Go to the ocean and let your children flip over rocks and explore the water. Take a trek out to the mountains and see how high you can climb.

Tell the people you love that you love them, and celebrate your life for what it is now — glorious, alive, and full of potential. You’ll never regret the memories you create, but you might regret not making those memories in the first place.

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This post was previously published on Lauren Hall’s blog.

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