Have you ever been asked/ or read the following question:

What you would do in your life if you knew you had one day left to live?

You would immediately do those things that you have been putting off- perhaps call your loved ones, stop putting things off, do what needs to be done now!

I was reading up somewhere (I honestly forget which article it was online) about this little experiment that gave me a different perspective to life.

The writer was trying to explain that when we see how much time we have left to live, we actually re-focus our lives and do things that are more important now, instead of putting it off.

It is more like a reawakening. This reawakening brings in a sense of renewed priorities and opens up our minds to figure out what’s really important in life. If you have read When Breath Becomes Air by Dr. Paul Kalanithi, you will know exactly what the book talks about: if you knew you were going to die soon, how would you live your life for the remaining time you have on earth?

So, bear with me as I show you can carry out this little experiment for yourself.

[The official statistics available over at WHO website says that the average life expectancy of a Pakistani man is 66 years, so I will work with this number. My grandfather lived up to the amazing age of 91, and my father lived up to 70 as he succumbed to cancer. So realistically speaking, I may live longer than 66 years of age. But for the sake of carrying out this experiment, I will stick with 66 years.]

Pakistani Male Life Expectancy =       66 years

My age =                                             43 years

Years left for me  (66-43) =               23 years

23 years x 365 days =                         8395 days

8395 days x 24 hours =                       201,480 hours

On average, I sleep 8 hours a day, which means 8 x 365 =  

2920 hours sleeping in one year

Which means, 2920 hours sleeping x 23 years =                  

67,160 hours sleeping

201,480 hours left – 67,160 sleeping hours =                       

134,320 active hours left for me.

Which means, 134,320/ 24 hours =                                    

5596 days active days left for me

Which means, 5596 days/ 365 =                                           

15.33 active years left for me.

So, what am I going to do with my 15,33 active years? When I will start implementing those plans that I’ve been holding off? When I will finally take the plunge to take that trip to Japan?

So when I know technically I have this many number of years left, I know what are the important things I need to do. Get rid of toxic people from my life. Make those travel plans now. Learn all the skills I’ve been wanting to. Appreciate the right people people in my life a lot more. Spend a lot more time in gratitude. Prepare myself for the life hereafter. Somehow, I don’t feel morose about this kind of attitude; if anything, I feel I have a renewed zest for life.

We all have just one life on this planet. Just one chance at everything. Every second that passes by is gone, it won’t come back. We are not getting younger, our bodies are growing old with us.

It’s a different perspective that I am looking at life. We will all die one day. That’s one thing guaranteed. But we also have a choice to live our life the way we want to.

I know it may sound morbid and all, but it becomes easier to accept once we acknowledge and accept that we are all going to die one day, and to have this perspective of how much active time we have left, we can decide how we want to utilise that time to our best,

So why not do those things today? What’s stopping you? What are you waiting for?