If the calendar were to read “today is the day you die”, how would you feel? Would you panic or would you be okay? Why would someone panic, there’s nothing they can do about it now? This is why:

They panic because they know they haven’t done everything they should have been doing, and now they’re at the end of their run they’re worried they’ve wasted their life. They have been putting things off, not fixing things that need fixing, not speaking their truth. As a result, the life they have always promised themselves to attain has not been attained and therefore they panic. They did not achieve what they know they could have, fulfilled their potential you could say, and there is no second chance to put it right.

When a person talks of what they’d do with their last day on earth, they recount endless cliches of spending time with loved ones, appreciating nature and going on a coke filled bender one last time. I think these things are ill-judged as they are predicated upon the idea that one will be happy with their life. If one does feel satisfied, then maybe they will have the peace of mind to do these things. But realistically, how many people are going to truly be happy with the way they have lived. Who is going to be able to come to terms with the fact their life is ending and they did not make the utmost of it and have no chance to turn that around?

I imagine many people’s last day, should they know when it is, would be taken up by reflection. Recounting on every little action, decision and effect they’ve had. Did I make the right choice, did I make up for the mistake, do these people know that I still think about them all the time? If people knew the day they were to die, instead of being peaceful I imagine it would be filled with existential angst.

Although the prompt provides nothing more than mental gymnastics rather than a plausible event, these postulations are very real for many people and have an antidote:

Start doing things you’re putting off. Stop lying and start speaking your being into existence. Try to resolve things you know you want to resolve. Or don’t, and risk having your last moments filled with panic, anxiety and guilt at the fact so much was left not done and unsaid.