The other day I began thinking how different would people's personalities, attitudes, and mentality be if they knew they could never die? If we knew that we'd live forever.

Obviously, this is an impractical idea, but it sure posed a lot of questions in my mind and really turned the wheels in my head.

Currently, we live in a world in which everyone's life inevitably comes to an end. It's just a matter of when. For some people, it's much too soon.

Back in the day, the life expectancy was roughly 50. You would be considered old if you lived past that. Today, with all the new advances in medicine, people are expected to live to even 100! Crazy right? 100 years to do whatever you want.

That's the cool thing about life. It really is all about what we create for ourselves.

Often times, in hardships it feels as though life is controlling us and throwing balls of flames at us, trying to see how much we can dodge, or how we can get through it. But think about it -- we always come out on the other side. These bad times never last. Besides, it's what we can create from it, right?

Bad things are bound to happen, that's just life -- but good things, even amazing experiences, can also happen when the effort is put forth!

We could spend our time sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves, we could spend time wishing things had gone differently, but all that's doing is wasting more time and more opportunities we have to make a change. It's weird looking at life as a whole -- it really is like a ticking time bomb. It's too bad that we can't live forever, or maybe is it good?

Does it motivate us to want to put more effort into emotional relationships knowing that the next day could very well be goodbye? Does it motivate us to try new things knowing that it may be the only opportunity? Does it push us to our limit to want to take care of our well-being, not only physically but also mentally and emotionally, and for some, spiritually. Would it change the value of money? How would relationships be? Improved because "forever and always" becomes all so real, or worse because of the fear or truly spending forever with someone? We always throw the concept of forever around, but who actually means it? What is forever?

If there was one common goal within all this conflict, and all these disagreements, it would be to live as long as possible. Most people strive to live a fulfilling life and do as much as they can while their bodies are physically able to. No one wants to bury their children -- as they brought them into this world, they should be the ones to see their parents off, but unfortunately, that's not always how things work. With this in mind, the goal is always to grow old.

But then we go to the concept of Tim McGraw's "Live Like You Were Dying." This song has become one of the most famous songs in America -- whether you like country or not, it has to be one everyone's heard.

The ideas behind it go very opposite from what this is about. Actually, now that I think about it, many songs discuss the idea of living in the moment, because soon it passes. Is this a pessimistic way to look at life, or is it just realistic?

The narrator of the song discusses the life of someone who has been given the news that his life is going to be much shorter than anticipated and how they handle it.

This is one of my favorite songs despite what this is about. It really helped to motivate these thoughts and I think McGraw and the other writers of this song give everyone something to think about.

Below I have highlighted lyrics that seem to stick out and give a new perspective on life, as if we only had a few chances to live it up.

And he said,

I went skydiving
I went rocky mountain climbing
I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu
And I loved deeper
And I spoke sweeter
And I gave forgiveness I'd been denyin'
And he said, Someday I hope you get the chance
To live like you were dyin'
He said, I was finally the husband
That most the time I wasn't
And I became a friend, a friend would like to have
And all of a sudden goin' fishin'
Wasn't such an imposition
And I went three times that year I lost my dad
Well I, I finally read the good book
And I took a good long hard look
At what I'd do if I could do it all again.

What if society changed their mindset? What if we took risks, loved endlessly, took a step back from our selfish human ways, did things we never thought were possible, just because? Just to do them, not because an ending is in sight, but because why not? Why not. Our world is so consumed in the structure of work, time and money. I myself am a huge example of that. I'm always writing lists and making plans of every second of every day. I am far from "down to earth." I love organizing and knowing what's going to happen next. Sometimes I wish I was able to be more spontaneous. I wish I could just take risks not worrying about the outcome. I guess it's all about finding a balance. Being too risky could lead you to go insane, having zero priorities could scramble you up so much that you find yourself so lost that there's no way to get back on track, yet being too anal and too organized could also bring you to insanity as well. Life in general, in almost every aspect, is all about finding a balance. Every day I work on this myself. I find myself to be a very extremist person. As my mother always says, I need to live in the grey more. It's always black or white in my mind, but that's really not how the world works.

Maybe some people want to live like they're dying, while maybe some want to live like they live forever.

Or should we live somewhere in between?

I think I finally understand the quote "live in the moment." Much easier said than done though, because how can we not now and again let the past sweep into our minds? How can we not make decisions that won't affect us in the future? Everything happens for a reason. Wow, it seems as though all the famous cliche quotes can be incorporated into this idea. It's as if all of them contradict each other though.

The way we all live is up to us.

Not one way is right, nor is the other wrong. It's about what works best for you, your personality and your lifestyle. Recently, after my mother had died and the fear of Eileen leaving, I have been trying to live as if I was dying, or if the world would end.

Finding something positive out of every day, even when I feel like whatever pain I'm feeling will never leave.

But what if I looked at it as if I have all this time to kill, that I might as well enjoy it? Why should I live forever miserably when I could be making a difference in the world?

It's so hard to think about what we individually would do if we lived forever, because it would all be based on how society would be if we lived forever.

This idea is so far-fetched that there really is no right or wrong answer.

It just brings up so many different questions, your imagination could go crazy as mine is.

Would we have government?

What about families? Would people be allowed to have babies? How old would we grow up to be? Would we just keep getting older and older?

Would there be suffering?

Would there be pain?

The people who are suffering "life-threatening illnesses," would they just have to suffer forever and ever, or would that not even be in question?

What if everyone could live forever if they could make it the way video games are?

We live as long as want without getting killed or killing ourselves.

No dying of old age, no dying of diseases.

I'm trying very hard to live each day the best way I can, but I'm not quite sure which one that is.

Tim McGraw looks at it as a wonderful thing because it pushes us to do things we wouldn't normally do.

Death is not something I am truly in acceptance of yet. After losing my mother I still have trouble understanding the whole concept and have a tremendous fear of myself and my mother dying.

So should we live our life as if we lived forever? Or should we live like we are dying?