Live Life to the Fullest - How? By Understanding that Death is Real
What if you only had five more years to live?
What would you do?
Think about that for a few seconds before you read on.
Would you live the life you always wanted? Travel the world? Chase after your dreams? Finally dare to go and talk to that one person you like so much?
Would you be yourself, completely and unashamedly, the real you hidden behind and under all those layers and masks? Would you do fearsome things you would have never dared to do before…?
I am sure you can come up with many things yourself. Now, think about it for a moment. All those things, all those thoughts you have, they are something you want to do in your life.
But you aren’t doing them. What is holding you back? What is stopping you from getting up and doing those things right now? What is stopping you from living life to the fullest?
Tomorrow is stopping you.
You see, you might not die in 5 years. But maybe it will be in 10 or 20 years. You do not know. Most of us live with the thought that our dreams can wait for tomorrow, but unfortunately, also for most of us, tomorrow may never come.
My father died at the age of 38 in an accident. One day, everything was normal, he was living his life with his hopes and dreams; the next, he was gone.
He did not choose that. He did not decide to leave his life right there; it just abruptly got taken away from him.
It happens.
Every day, people die without them having the power to decide or change it. And the unfortunate thing is that some die without having taken a single step in the direction of their dreams.
People tend to forget that we live a mortal life. A life that can and will come to an end one day.
But what would happen if you put a time limit on your life? Let me put that another way: If you knew when you were going to die, what would you do then?
You would start to see everything differently. Your mentality would begin to be, “I only have so few days until I am gone; it’s time to do with my life what I want.I have to start making every day count. I have to live life to the fullest.”
You would begin to take risks, to be yourself more consciously. But most of all, you will start to look at life very differently. More specifically, you will start looking at life the way you should always have looked at it.
When you go on vacation for seven days, you are determined to make every day count and you endeavor to make it as good as you possibly can, don’t you? Why?
Because you know that it will soon be over. You know that after those seven days, it will end and you have to go back home. Back to your normal life.
So you try and fill every day with as much enjoyment and adventure as you can. You try and live every single minute of the day because, at the back of your mind, you know that it will soon come to an end.
But once we return home, what happens? Most of us instantly revert to our regular way of thinking and get stuck in our daily routine again. We get sucked back into thinking that every day is just another day.
When every day, every single day, is an opportunity for you to do something special!
A unique chance for you to wake up, to step up, and to do with your life what you want to do – to live your life to the fullest. Too many people lose sight of that seemingly simple idea. How come? It hasn’t hit them hard enough yet. They haven’t come to the full understanding that life is a one-chance shot.
So they miss that chance. Don’t make that same mistake!
“When you’re gone, you’re gone forever. You only live once. Live exactly how you want to be remembered.”
Change of Perspective
The danger of not knowing when we are going to die is that we often forget that we are mere mortals. Tomorrow could be your last day. For that reason, it’s crucial for you to truly understand that your time on this planet is limited, to brand that thought very deeply within your mind, and to never forget it.
Not only will it help you remind yourself that you shouldn’t do something which deep down you really hate – I mean, if you only get to live this life once, what is the point of sustaining a lifestyle you hate, a job you hate, a course you hate, a relationship you hate…?
None.
You are wasting precious time, which you’ll never get back – but it will also remind yourself to dare to do things in life.
To live life to the fullest.
Do not stop yourself because of feelings of fear. Change your perspective on life by simply thinking: “Why shouldn’t I do it? I only live once; I should try.”
So many times, we find ourselves in situations where we want to do something but we don’t because we hold that wrong perspective in our minds.
For example, walking up to a complete stranger. I still remember how many times I slapped myself on the forehead and said, “Dang, I should have said something to her.” But why didn’t I? Fear, of course. What would she have thought? What would she have said?
But here, we come again to the key point: the most important thought that was holding me back was that comfortable feeling of, “Ahhh, what does it matter? There is another tomorrow. What I can’t do today, I can just do tomorrow instead.”
We create that thought unconsciously in our minds. Be aware of that and change your perspective; train your mind into thinking that today is all you’ve got.
In the end, what would it matter if I had walked up to her and it didn’t work out? Nothing. At least I tried; at least I would know how it turned out. I would learn from it. That goes with EVERYTHING. When we don’t do what we want to do, the only thing we feel is regret.
If you would only regret not doing it afterward, how ridiculous is it to not go for it in the first place?! If you put this seemingly simple thought in your mind, you can change your perspective of life into daring and doing more, into living life fully.
Question about this article: How do you feel about using the idea of death to live life more fully? Does it help you?
Share your thoughts with us in the comment section below.
Your voice matters!
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All I know is if I would have lived life to the fullest I would have already been dead. ?
But you would have lived life fully! Haha. Well, you can of course also live life fully and do it safely ;).