Live every year as if it were your last

Minh Tan

Other quotes by me

There’s a popular English expression that states live every DAY as if it were your last. It’s mean to inspire, stir passion and spur action. However, for all practical purposes, it’s about as impractical, possibly stupid, as advice can get. Let’s talk about it in generality as it would apply to most people, rather than everybody in each case, cause nothing applies to everybody.

If each day were your last day, do you think you’d ever go to work? Do you think you’d run errands like get groceries? Do you think you’d do chores like the dishes? Do you think you’d not do things like get drunk, light up weed, or do some other celebrations that people do on the last day of trivial events like a school year, work term or camp? Then, would you have time to do everything you might need to do? You might want to spend half the day calling all those you love to tell them how much you love them… and do it every day cause you’ve got to live every day like your last, right? How annoying would that be for some?

A far more practical piece of advice would be to live every year as if it were your last. Over the space of a year, you’ll probably still need to work to get some income. You might argue you can rely on your savings, sure, but you’d be no worse off in terms of not working than the live every day advice. However, you’ll probably have to do errands and chores just to keep your life sustainable. You can periodically tell those you love how much they mean to you over the course of a year. There’s also some time, but not too much time, to do all those things you still want to do. There’s still some urgency to it all.

Fact is, you can live a practical life and still do a bunch of things to lead a passionate life if you live every year as if it were your last.