J.S. Park

10,000 Days Left — How Then Shall We Die?

I have lived thirty years and one-hundred-twenty or so days. That equals a little over 11,000 days.

If I’m so blessed, I’ll have another thirty years. About ten-thousand days.

And that’s it. No do-overs, no second chances, no return emails — my one shot, then off to the door of eternity. It’s a sobering thought, and unless you’re in the cancer ward or bleeding from a hole in your side, it’s not one we think of much.

But it’s coming. We write about it, watch movies with it, tell others about it: but hardly do we think, I’m almost dead.

Even then, we do weird bizarre things when mortality overwhelms us. The closer we approach death, the more we try to save up, as if we’ll really enjoy that tiny last slice of existence. We spend a larger percentage of life trying to be very comfortable as the end approaches.

Shouldn’t we be doing the very opposite? Shouldn’t we be saying goodbye to our garbage, giving away our things, using the last bit of breath for a useful purpose that will last beyond us?

And if death can come for us any moment — it can — we should probably be living like that now. Right now.

But it’s that very same pressure to live to the fullest that leads us not to die very well.

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