The Worst Advice You’ll Ever Receive
"Live each day as if it were your last."
WTF?
Live everyday like a reckless lunatic because one day out of roughly the next 25,000 days will actually be your last so you might as well assume that it will be today? That’s the worst advice ever.
Any last-day-on earth scenario for me would be a combination of three routes:
the ballistic the sadistic and the altruistic.
For example, depending on my mood any of the following would be in the realm of possibility:
Fleeing from the police after inflicting some kind of vigilante justice on people I thought deserved it
The intaking of a lot of drugs
Approaching a Ferrari dealership with a mask and fake gun in my pocket in case my credit cards don't work
Crying at some point
Eating a Katz's Deli Sandwich
Begging Richard Branson or Dennis Tito to take me into space right. this. minute.
Cashing out my savings and giving it to my family or a charity
Lots of sex
Hanging out with friends and family
Not returning any emails
Of course, if this binge into the apocalyptic abyss didn’t end up being your last day on earth, none of these activities would help you out if you had some sort of professional obligation in life.
Boss, I can see how on your surveillance video that looks like me throwing Molotov Cocktails through your living room window, but firing me seems like a harsh response, no? I mean I was acting like it as my last day on earth!
A hope-and-a-dream inspirational quote like "Live each day as if it were your last," really comes down to a simple question: “Are you the kind of person who would inspire you?”
That’s the game. Not just what you did yesterday or today, but your whole body of work. If you read your up-to-date life bio and you didn’t know you, would you be inspired by what you read?
Don’t live each day like it was your last, live each day like it was the first day of the rest of your life.
Because it is.
With this new mindset:
How would you attack the things you do on an everyday basis?
What would your attitude be?
How would you use your free time?
What would be most/least important to you?
Who would you surround yourself with?
How would you treat them?
What would you do differently for the first time in a long time?
All of these force you to use your brain and choose something that has a longer shelf life than running in an unaccountable mess with your guns a’blazin before the clock strikes midnight.
Life is fragile. Death can be around the corner. You could be on a train coming to NYC when all of a sudden something goes terribly wrong.
But when death most likely doesn’t come around that unknown corner on any given day, life is loooong. So there's time to change your life so that you inspire you, so that you can become not the most interesting (wo)man in the world, but the most interesting (wo)man in your world. It most definitely won't happen in one day's time, but today's a hell of a day to start. ---- That all being said, we know that imagining all the crazy and joyous things we'd do on our last day on earth is kind fun to think about. So share with us what your last day on earth might look like. The best answer will get a hard copy of The Accountability Effect mailed to them.
