24 Hours. Life at its end.
What it means to live out your last day on this planet.
There’s a phrase from pop culture: live like there’s no tomorrow. But what does it actually mean to have one day left? What would it feel like? How would one spend it?
To answer that question, I had to ask myself what I would do with a 24-hour timer on my deathbed.
Let me get the rules straight: for 24 hours, I have normal health, no extravagant finances (if I did, I would automatically argue for paying a rocket to deliver a payload of a casket + myself into deep space, from which I will marvel over our home, eventually buried as the farthest human from Earth), and there’s no scifi-like bending of time as to evade terminal death sentence.
Would I rush for a sex-filled drug tour of Las Vegas clubs? Would I vacation at a splendid Spanish beachfront? Would I go for some crazy adventure like climbing a volcano or riding a helicopter?
No, I wouldn’t. In fact, my simple answer would be working at a farm for a day.
I thought about the question for a while, and I concluded that instead of living 24 hours of pleasure, I would live 24 hours of meaning. That’s, in my opinion, the most valuable way of experiencing the world for one last time.
So what would I do in 24 hours? I would wake up at dawn, strap my boots up, roll my sleeves up, and get to work at a farm, preferably one that is exotically local. As simple as it is, to me, work in nature is meaningful. It’s a fulfilling prophecy of living. I would say the same with hunting if it was my alternative.
When the sun sets, I would harvest this produce, cook up a nice dinner, and share it with my loving partner. Later, I would probably take the time to say goodbye to the most meaningful people I have known. And finally, I would step outside, read a verse from the Bible, swallow an acorn, and as I look up to the stars, counting down my last minutes, I would step off a tall cliff edge, falling to my death with gratitude, as I hope for a healthy Oak Tree nourishing the world in return.
Final Thoughts
In this fast-paced and digitally-driven society, many often forget what it means to live a fulfilling existence. Many end up wasting time on pleasures, distractions, and entitlement because of how blind-sighting work obligations may be.
What one would do with 24 hours is a good exercise to remind oneself of how precious life and time in our world is. Just the probability of being alive is remarkable. We all eventually die, so why wouldn’t we live today like there’s no tomorrow?
