Don't live every day like it's your last!

And other lessons I've learned from my sick neighbour

Photo by Orkhan Musayev on Unsplash

I’ve always thought the expression “live each day as if it’s your last” was terminally stupid. Let’s be honest, if we all did that life would be INSANE.

Fun… sure. But insane.

We’d have spanked all our money, tried heroin “because I’ve always wondered”, slept with inappropriate people, told our bosses EXACTLY what we thought of them, consumed the content of every hotel minibar in a 2 mile radius and taken up smoking again.

We’d fritter our pensions and savings on meals/hotels/dogs/hard drugs/travel (delete as appropriate). Then wake up and realise it wasn’t actually our last day and now we’re homeless, broke, unemployed and really really want to try heroin again.

And what if everyone did it on the same day?? Chaos. Purge-like! Actions without consequences! Plus all the hedonism service providers - the drug dealers, the hookers - they’d be offline too, living their dreams. Nightmare!

There’s a chance I look at thing things too literally. But in the last few days I’ve been pondering that classic question; what would you do if you knew you didn’t have long to live. How’s that for a Sunday boost of sunshine?! Bear with me folks - I promise it’s not a gloomy one!

My next-door neighbour was recently diagnosed with incurable cancer. Note - I do not say terminal. Because words matter and “terminal” sounds like there’s no point in carrying on. It’s the end of the line. Over. Done. Whereas “incurable” holds a certain hope - it’s not going to go away, but we can still do some shit. You’re still here.

My neighbour is in her 80s, sprightly, involved in the community and is taking it all in her stride. When I found out, I told her how sorry I was - and she shrugged and said “it happens to all of us”.

Determined not to placate, I pushed on.

“I’m not sure that’s much of a comfort - it still must be really hard”

“Oh no” she said “I find that a HUGE comfort”. I was firmly put back in my box.

Since that diagnosis she’s been undertaking chemo, which knocks her for a while, then she emerges again and quietly carries on with life as normal. But the big change I’ve noticed is the amount of entertaining she does.

Every evening there is laughter coming from their garden. I hear card games being played, rules being argued over. During the day there are endless phone calls and FaceTimes from her garden; conversations and catch-ups in the sunshine. Because, y’know… she’s still there.

She appreciates each day and does the things that make her happy - which generally involves going to the allotment to harvest enormous vegetables and bell ringing in our village church. She embraces a sunny day with joy.

She’s not forcing herself to write a gratitude journal - she’s simply saying “hey, this is nice - I think I’ll keep doing it”. Her view is that she’s had a good long life - and she’s at pains to point out she’d likely feel very different if she were in her 40s and still bringing up small children.

But there’s a gentleness to her facing her final days - and I find it… reassuring. There’s no sense of pressure. No mad dash to complete a bucket list. To write a trilogy of novels or visit every country in the world with the letter ‘E’ in its name.

And I wonder if there’s a lesson here that’s at odds with the high octane drama of click-bait pseudo-therapy questions like WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU WEREN’T AFRAID?? The ones that sound cool but are actually not that helpful because… well, if you weren’t afraid you’d probably have been killed the first time you tried to cross a road. And definitely the first time you went up any kind of high-rise building and ‘wondered’.

Living well

Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I’m about to go off on a sacharine spiel about the importance of spending with with people you love. That if my neighbour has taught me one thing it’s that LOVE is all that matters. That none of us know how long we have and we must spend more time with the people that matter most to us.

And to some extent that’s true. But in reality, some people just suck. Even people we love dearly can drive us up the wall quite quickly. And if you’re in any doubt of this, I have one word for you: Christmas.

So sure, you might hang out with them for a few hours if it were actually your last day… but you can’t live each day like that. Plus it would just turn into a political nightmare, “I should probably see so and so… and whathisname will definitely expect a call before we all CEASE TO EXIST…”.

Instead, I propose a new approach. I call it:

“Live each day like there might be an end point soon and you should probably, like, focus a bit - but also you don’t really know when, and you still have responsibilities as an adult and some boring shit that needs doing”.

I grant you, nobody’s going to put it on a bumper sticker any time soon. And it sure as hell ain’t going viral. But it feels a bit more… do-able?

With this in mind, if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to gift you the rules to this new approach. Messers, I give you THE AMAZING THREE STEP PROCESS TO LIVING A LIFE YOU (probably) WON’T REGRET!*

(*not legally binding)

Step 1: Figure out what matters to you

I often feel - probably because of social media - that I have to do something AMAZING with my life, otherwise I’ve not made the most of my time here. Or at the very least I have to ‘optimise’ myself in some way - that there’s always a better me lurking somewhere in the future, perhaps merely a self-help book or an improving podcast away.

But who the fuck made up that rule? The truth is what matters to us as individuals is as unique as our fingerprints.

For some people - like my neighbour - what matters is simply being with friends and family. For others, scaling a mountain might be the thing. It could be reading. Or cooking a perfect soufflé. If there’s a big THING that deeply matters to you - dancing the Argentine tango in Argentina/becoming an actor - then you should probably crack on and do that.

But don’t feel it has to be something impressive - or expensive. What matters to you might not even look like a goal - it could just be walking in the woods, perving on wildlife. It could be where you live. Or who you live with.

It could even be drinking over-priced wine on yachts. But I suspect that’s not what really matters to you, if you’re really honest with yourself. There’s a big difference between what’s nice and what matters.

My point is, we live in a consumerist culture where we are bombarded everyday with messages about what matters. What is important. What is valuable. What is beautiful. And most of this is horse shit.

The most valuable thing you can do for yourself in this lifetime is figure out what really matters TO YOU. Not to your mate, your boss or your spouse. Not to that influencer with the great wardrobe and the exotic house that you doom-scroll in secret. To YOU.

Step 2: Do more of that stuff

Erm - I’m not sure how much more eloquently I can put this. Do the thing that matters to you.

Chances are you won’t be able to dedicate all day everyday to it, because… life. But I’ve noticed in recent years that when I feel spectucularly shit, it’s usually because precisely none of my time has been spent doing things that really matter to me. And all of it has been spent doing stuff other people have told me is important, but I don’t really vibe with.

I call this phenomenon the Not My Party Effect; that feeling when you’re doing something that’s meant to be fun and everyone around you is loving it but you feel like a freak because all you want to do is go home and put your slippers on. You know the one.

So yes. Build in as much of the stuff that matters to you as is practical right now. No excuses. Period.

Step 3: Keeping doing more of that stuff

Confession - I didn’t really have a Step 3. Just keep doing Step 2. And if something feels off, revisit Step 1 with more honesty.

Chances are you have a bit longer. But you don’t know how much, and it would really SUCK if you got hit by a bus before you wrote down that brilliant murder mystery idea you had. Or found out what’s down that passageway you only noticed for the first time the other day. Or spent more time with your dog.

So do some more of that stuff. And thank me later. Or not - we’ll both be busy anyway.

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Morning Messers - and a particularly jolly hello to new subscribers! Welcome! Please know this is a safe space where we value your weird and wonderful confessions, outbursts, thoughts and feelings.

And if you’re a long-term subscriber… how you doing? Holding up ok?

As absurd as it sounds, the whole ‘things that matter might be different from things that are nice’ concept only dawned on me recently. You probably knew this already - but if you didn’t… I hope this is helpful.

The awful cheesy truth is the thing that matters to me is… doing this. Writing. And, more specifically, writing in the hope that my words resonate with someone who might be thinking the same thing, and by some magical alchemy make them feel less alone. This - right here - is what really matters to me. Which is why I do it. So thanks for being here. Without you I’m just a crazy woman hammering at a laptop.

Do you know what matters to you….? I’d love to hear. The more mundane the better…

Oh and if you enjoyed this, please hit the like button (the hearty one!). It helps my work find more like-minded folk. Which is a thing that matters to me.