There are those who love to play the “what if” game: What if you won the lottery, what if you could have dinner with three people from history, etc. Whether it’s played as an ice-breaker during a corporate meeting or a fun way to spend time with friends, it’s an interesting way to share some fascinating facts about yourself with others.
Well, we’re going to borrow from that premise but for a more important cause: To help you find out more about yourself.
I’ve written about the glut of information that bombards us daily, and of the manner in which people or organizations do their best to confuse every issue under the sun. It’s gotten to a point where we all are running through a maze of projects and tasks that have been propelled by the agendas, concerns or mandates (active or passive) from a variety of people and personalities.
So here’s how I’d like for you to address this premise:
What would you do if you had just one minute left to live?
It’s a loaded question, to be sure. The act of doing can imply everything from action to thought; personal to public. And if you’re going to ask me which of these you should consider, I will tell you that I just don’t know.
See, you’re the one who has one minute to live. It’s your life, so you cannot expect me to have an answer for such a request. You may choose one of those action options or all of them. But remember that you only have one minute, so your choices have to be such that they’ll maximize the use of that infinitesimally short segment of time.
Another question that may invariably pop up in your mind is why I should ask you to do such a macabre thing? Well first of all, it really isn’t macabre. Death is a part of life, just like birth. One initiates the journey and the other, well, let’s just say that it diverts it. Secondly, to your knowledge (and with almost absolute certainty) you will not pass on in the next 60 seconds. So this is merely an exercise of prioritization; assessing what is most important for you to do before those mere 60 seconds tick away.
Statistically speaking, we live through approximately 31.5 million seconds per each year of life. When broken down by that amount, it seems as though we have an ocean of time in which to conduct our journey through life. And if you’ve been around for, let’s say 50 years, you’ve already lived about 1.58 billion seconds. With an average life expectancy of around 75 years (or 2.36 billion seconds), that means that you would have approximately 782.5 million seconds left to go.
So, what would you do with those remaining 60 seconds of life?
Final Thoughts
I realize that the moniker for my closing segment is a bit on the nose for the premise I’ve chosen. But I want to explain to you why I chose this for this week’s commentary:
We now exist in a world that has been systematically erasing the notion of living from our minds. We spend vast amounts of our time in a never-ending process of choosing, judging, forecasting, expressing, ignoring or altogether replacing the simple act of being; of living life connected to the world in which we live. Not to fight it, conquer it, explore it, exploit it or forcing it to submit to the will of our purported superiority as the apex creature on Earth. Just to enjoy the sheer pleasure of living. To walk barefoot across a lawn still wet from the morning dew; to remember the feeling of the rain on your face; to stand outside in the darkness of the night with the person you love and letting fireflies dance around you with abandon.
You’ve had millions of opportunities to explore and celebrate life with those whom you love, with friends who you cherish, and even with people whom you’ve never met. After all, if you think about it, every friend you have started out as a stranger you chanced to meet and now cannot think of a life without them.
So consider what you would do in those final 60 seconds; what you would say, what you would cherish, what you would wish to taste one last time, or to whom you would reach out to express your love, faith or devotion. Whatever comes to mind, those are the treasures of your life. Those are the intrinsic gifts of life that matter most to you; the ones that require no judgment, no choosing or even a thought of recognition. Because they simply are.
And once your minute is up, all you have to do is dedicate the rest of your precious seconds of life to those items, people and dreams. Because everything else that clutters up your busy life is but an illusion. Get rid of that weight and start living your life with purpose.
Every second counts.
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