Living Each Moment As If It Was Your Last

Sunday, August 29th, 2004 | Uncategorized

*”Live each moment, realizing that you and everyone around you is dying”*
I’m currently reading the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, and really liking it. It talks about the constant awareness of imminent death and how this realization of our own impermenance can affect the way we live. Reflecting on this a bit (at 5AM) I am recognizing this same message has been coming to me from many different sources. I like this, because this is usually how I recognize something as true, I suddenly notice that everyone has always been saying the same thing.

Experiencing a city before moving…again

I was bitching for the umpteenth time that I couldn’t believe I’m leaving in 3 days, and I started to say that I should get that out of my head or else I wouldn’t enjoy the rest of my time here. And then…I realized that wasn’t true, and furthermore, it is the same situation that the book talked about. At the end of every trip, or move out of a city, I realize “suddenly” all the things that I really want to do and I go and try to do them. I always do more in the last 2 weeks than over the month or months that I have lived in the city. But in the cities where I have lived shorter times, I go do stuff sooner. It is human nature to deny things that we don’t want to think about, like leaving a place and running out of time to experience it, like New York, London, Argentina, or this existence we call Life. The more we force ourselves to acknowledge the truth that we are just transients, that we had better enjoy ourselves, because we may never see this road again, the better off we’ll be.

Christianity
Now, I am a Catholic, and don’t worry, Mom, I’m not thinking about converting to Buddhism any time soon (and yes, my mom reads this blog…). I was just thinking about the early Christians, and wondering if we didn’t have this same message back then? They really and truly believed that the end times were just around the corner, that they might happen within their lifetimes. They had to live their lives accepting that the world could literally END at any moment. …wow. That was the time when much of the world became Christian based solely on the admiration of those Christians. I don’t think Christians today live with that realization. It’s okay to do bad things, to sin, to hate, because we can make it up. It’s okay to run up a huge credit card debt as long as you have a long time to pay, right? 0% interest for 12 months…

7 Habits
One of the habits in SevenHabitsOfHighlyEffectivePeople is “Beginning with the End in Mind”. It starts with an amazing exercise of imagining your own funeral. It asks you to imagine your friends, family, coworkers, and neighbors there, and ask yourself what it is you would like each of them to say. It’s a really cool and is a great tool for recognizing what’s really important to you in the different worlds of your life. Imagine living very moment with the constant awareness that above all else, you want to be a husband that always has time for his wife and family, that you want your coworkers to see you as dependable, that you want your friends to always be able to confide in you.

2 Comments to Living Each Moment As If It Was Your Last

jur bro jav
August 29, 2004

i want to add a coment or ask a question about the christianity part. who said it was ever ok to sin and hate? dont compare it to credit debt. God will always forgive (i think. thats somthing that im actually not that clear on cause iv heard different arguements) and its a good thing he always will cause if not we would all be goin to hell. we must and will sin, necisarilly. its true that many christians dont live w/ the realization that time might end tommorrow but the fact is that our own little time could end at any second. anyone who says “i can sin ill just go to confession later” is a hipocrit(did i spell that right) (yes jerm im guilty of it too). because they wont be forgiven if they arent truely sry.

Liz
August 29, 2004

Since it’s that time of year when jews all gather together to think about sin I thought I should chime in. Here’s the thing: in Judaism, you get to sin and you can repent for it, but God can only forgive you for sins against God; sins against other people need to be forgiven by those other people (which sometimes means you even have to find it in your heart to forgive yourself). The idea of Rosh Hashana (new year’s) is to check yourself on where you are, where you’ve been and where you’re going – part of that is making amends with those you’ve wronged. It’s not every day (i.e. living with the idea that this moment may be your last) but it’s close. It’s something we should all do more often but at least this way we get it in once a year.

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