If Today Was Your Last Day

This is the only card that got my attention this week-- perhaps, in light of last night's reading, it holds more significance. After finishing The Last Lecture, this is a question, that I'm sure, you'll be asking yourself. Remember the feeling you had after Tuesday's With Morrie, remember the thoughts of wondering-- whether knowing when would change anything? This story has that same kind of effect, ten times harder.

I closed the book, amdist tears (I'm a sucker, I know), and I couldn't help but think this very same question. Everyone wonder (like Nickelback), that if today was your last day, what would you do differently, if anything at all? Pausch says that in his last time on Earth, he changed his life dramatically. He and his wife stopped worrying about the trivial things (like leaving clothes on the floor) and fought less, making sure to leave their children with only good memories of the two of them together. Would you leave a legacy? Would you leave anything at all?

Omit the dying in the question. What if you found out you were being fired tomorrow, from a job you hate, even? Would you work that much harder to impress someone, or quit and run out before that time came? What if you were taking your final exams, and knew this last one would make you graduate? Would you flunk it, just to buy yourself another year of not knowing what to do with your life? What if you knew that in a few hours you would get into a huge fight with a friend, and never see them again? Would you be kinder, or plan a different attack strategy?

I like to think, that if I could do it all again, I wouldn't change a thing (i.e., Mary J. Blige). I like to think that if I knew that I wouldn't wake up tomorrow, I'd be perfectly content with the way I've lived my life. That would be a lie, for sure. This doesn't strike me as a surprise. Pausch lived for a year longer than his doctors expected him to, he made a few more memories, spent one more birthday with his family. He defied the odds until finally succumbing to them.

It's a difficult question-- not one that I think anyone can answer correctly. But if I had to choose, if I really had to choose whether to know the very moment that I'll die, I think I would like you to tell me. I'm not gonna play the life's a surprise, take it as your dealt kinda hand, and I wont bullshit with the you're not supposed to know garbage. If I knew, that in a month I would be dead-- I would live differently, after I'm done feeling sorry for myself, I would realize that there are more important things than what I think are important now. I would. I think. So if you know-- don't let it be a secret. I think you only truly live, when you learn how to die (right, Morrie?) And until we can finally put our egos behind us, and stop thinking that we're invincible, maybe then we'll realize where the heart is.