One thing I've started working on over the last year that maybe seems to be helping me, is committing towards living life to the fullest. Not to be morbid or fatalist, but I've started trying to live life as if I am going to die one day after my 48th birthday and on the day before I am to die, I wouldn't be able to think of something I regret not accomplishing. I am currently in my mid 30s.
If I were to die on my 48th birthday, I will have committed towards living a life to that point where I can die with no regrets.
My goals:
- I will have been a present father and husband (hopefully not ex)
- I will have done my best to guide my children towards feeling like they can do whatever they put their mind to.
- I will be completely debt free (Life insurance and financially responsible) and although what I leave behind will probably not be considered generational wealth, it at least will not be considered a burden to those that I leave it all to
- Those that remember me fondly will exceed those that did not like me by at least a factor of 5:1
- Due to proper revisions to the way I care for my body, I will be able to do whatever I want to without being restricted by my body until that day.
- I will celebrate any milestone I hope to achieve by 48 from the moment I accomplish it until I reach the age of 48. I will not move the milestone just because I have accomplished it early. This might mean I celebrate these accomplishments for years.
Now... for this mindset, if for some inconceivable reason I survive past this age. I celebrate all that I have achieved by the age of 48 and I can set new goals and dreams to achieve by the age of 60, if I were to die a day after my 60th birthday. But I will also not forget to continue celebrating my accomplishments by the age of 48. Kinda like a little bit of a gratitude journal type of strategy.
Now, supposedly this thought process is loosely related to stoicism and aiming for a state of eudaimonia, but I didn't read these philosophies prior to starting this idea. I mainly just based it on the idea of "death motivates us" and "live a life without regret". I also kinda based it on a weird realization I noticed when I was watching the survival series "Alone". Those guys could wander into a forest with a set target to survive for several months and accomplish it easily. But once they had no idea what the duration and timeline was (competing against each other), some of those guys started unraveling quickly within days or weeks. This even though they'd done significantly longer than that prior to that.
"I'll accomplish this in a few years, as soon as possible etc." is a bit different than "I have a decade left to accomplish this." kinda like the difference in focus and time management technique one might attain if focusing on a Pomodoro count down technique vs an unfocused approach where you waste time and then do it at the last moment.
One of the things I've started noticing by thinking this way is that I can start to more easily see what activities (big or small) move me towards my end goals and what activities are like side quests. It kinda allows me to look at things in sort of a wider lens and certain mundane things now look like important fundamental blocks and steps in the right direction towards a real tangible target. For some categories it allows me to feel like I see a bit clearly vs being in a fog and having no idea how far things will go, when to do it, etc. For instance in the topic of finances, I think it is allowing me to better see a balance between fervently saving vs enjoying life, enjoying a meal vs weight loss etc.
I also realize it also occasionally gives me insight into what is kinda unnecessary and keeping me from my goal. Rental properties isn't me. It's what other people are aiming for. Certain relationships with some people are holding me back or making me move in the opposite direction of my goal. Avoiding steps in the wrong direction are just as important as making incremental steps in the right direction which is just as important in removing obstacles that block me from making steps in any direction.
Now I'm not suggesting others to do what I am doing. I'm still figuring out what this means to me and how I might do it. It could be an idea that completely fails. However, I do think there's something in the idea of counting down towards a targeted date where everything from that point on is going to be perceived as gravy. I hope the idea works.
If I told my younger self from a decade ago what I have achieved so far, I think I'd give myself a high five, even if some of the things I had thought in my 20s that I wanted to accomplish by my 30s didn't happen. Instead I was feeling kinda down for a while (pandemic certainly didn't help) even though me in my 20s would have looked up to who I am today and probably aspired to reach the same result. 20s me wouldn't look at 30s me and see a failure. Figuring out how to view 30s me like 20s me is a goal. So, similar concept, but my goal for me as of today would be high fiving me as of age 48 and be like, "Wow! You did it!"
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