49 years and 4.5 months be exact. I kind of always thought of 50 as middle-aged but for the vast majority 50 is well past middle-aged. I could be 50% of the way through my life, hell I could even be less than 50% of the way through my life or I could be 80% of the way through my life or 99.5% of the way through my life, there is no way to know.
One thing is true for all of us: we don’t know when our last day will be. I wanted to write this blog entry not about when I will die because there’s no way to know, there’s no way to predict, and there’s no way to prevent death, but about making sure that I am living my life the best way possible.
There are two quotes that I heard recently on a podcast that really hit me hard. I was at the gym working out, which is pretty rare, while I was listening to this podcast. After the second one of these quotes that I heard, I had to rewind the podcast and pull up my note-taking app and make note of these two quotes.
Benjamin Franklin said “many people die at 25 and aren’t buried until they are 75”.
This is true of so many. So often people grow up with big dreams, excited about life. They get through high school, maybe they go off to college and they start a career, get married, have a family, and then all of a sudden they’re going through the motions, pretty much, for the rest of their lives. They talk about grinding away for the man and the old lady at home and they forget about all the dreams that they had and the things that they wanted to do. Even though they may not actually forget, they put all those things on the back burner because life happened and bills and mortgages and jobs and promotions and kids’ soccer games. Before you know it you’re 60 or 65 or 70 and maybe you finally get to retire. Now all those dreams and ideas are out of reach due to any number of things, including not being able to financially chase those dreams or not being physically fit enough to do the traveling or whatever it was that you wanted to do when you were young and had all your dreams floating around in your head. For far too many, that zest for life gets covered up by all the things that we call adulting. It may not be 25. It might be 30 or 35 or even 40. At some point far too many people stop really living and they just go through the motions until they’re too old to do anything about it.
The second quote is: “Live as if you were to die tomorrow, learn as if you will live forever,” by Mahatma Gandhi.
I like this quote because the idea of living as if you will die tomorrow is something that’s been written about in books and songs and talked about throughout history. If you really knew you were going to die tomorrow, you would live today differently. Even if you push that out and say that you knew you had a year to live but that you would be in the same health and there was nothing you could do to prevent your death, how would you live your last year? We would all live differently. We wouldn’t work so much. We would repair broken or strained relationships. We would cherish the time we have with our friends and loved ones. We would find ways to check things off our bucket lists. Beyond that we would probably appreciate every day more than we ever had. We would notice the beauty of nature and the sounds of the birds and the color of the sky. We would strive to have experiences both for ourselves and with those that we love to build memories and truly enjoy the time we have left.
I thought a lot about these quotes and about the impending Big 5-0. I think a lot of people, when they get to “midlife”, start to think about the things they can do to live longer. Everywhere you look, there’s a massive push to help people live longer—from supplements and hormone therapies to medical treatments, procedures, and countless other products and services promising a longer, healthier life. We were at one time exploring the option of opening stores specializing in anti-aging and wellness. It’s easy to see that this is a trend that people are willing to spend almost any amount of money to look and feel younger and to get back some of the energy, strength, and feeling they had when they were younger.
Yes I hope to live a long healthy life. Yes I try to develop healthy habits to give me a better chance of living a long healthy life. However, given the fact that none of us knows how long we will live, it has really kind of changed my perspective on how I want to live my life for however much time I have left. I’m going to continue making a real effort to do things that undoubtedly contribute to a healthier existence, like regularly get to the gym even though I don’t really like it very much, find ways to stay active mentally and physically and incorporate more fruits and vegetables into my life, especially once we move and have land for a big garden. I also know that quitting alcohol would be good for my health. So would not eating fried foods and cutting down on red meat and never smoking a cigar again. But I’ve decided that I want to find some balance. There are plenty of examples of people who do all the right things: don’t drink, don’t smoke, run marathons, and yet they died at a young age. Just this week an elite athlete who played in the NFL at the highest level possible, Chris Johnson, announced that he was diagnosed with ALS and he’s only 39 years old and is physically in better shape than 99% of people. Through no fault of his own he is afflicted with a disease that will at some point end his life too early.
Just like there are super healthy people that die at a young age, there are also people who live to be a hundred smoking a pack of cigarettes a day for 85 of those years, or drink every day, or live a sedentary lifestyle, or eat too much fast food. While I think that it would be irresponsible to say that diet, exercise, and habits don’t have the ability to affect your lifespan, it doesn’t mean that by doing the right things you will be ensured a long life.
I have a good friend who smokes cigarettes and as a life-long nonsmoker I don’t understand the appeal. I dislike like the smell but mostly I worry about the health consequences for my friend because I want him to live a long life and be able to play golf with me when we’re old. I’ve decided though that I will no longer give him shit for smoking. I’m not going to try to convince him to quit again. He quit a couple years ago for maybe 6 months. Then he started again. I asked him why when he had gotten through the withdrawals and seemed to have escaped the grasp of the nicotine addiction. His answer was, “because I love smoking”. I guess I can respect that. It’s something he knows isn’t good for him, but knowing that he chooses to smoke because he likes it. He could have quit forever, and maybe that would have given him longer to be upright, but he would have sacrificed the joy he gets from smoking for the chance at living longer. I respect his decision and I now understand it more than ever.
So going forward I’m going to do the things that I want to do. My focus is going to be on enjoying every day.
I used to be terrified to fly. I always thought it was due to lack of control, but then I read something somewhere that said people are afraid of flying because the fear death. Obviously we all fear death to an extent. But what I read said that a big reason people fear death is because they have too much they haven’t done. Big plans, travel and relaxing. People fear death because they haven’t fulfilled their life, too much is left undone or incomplete.
There’s a song that I love by a band called Green River Ordinance. The song is called “When My Days Are Done” and the opening line of the song is “I ain’t afraid of dying because I have truly lived.” He goes on to say that “when my time comes don’t be sad for me for I have truly lived.” That’s what I hope for at the end of my life, whenever that time comes, that I can say I truly lived.
doing it different 