This year we experienced the passing away of two young iconic music legends of our time, Avicii and Mac Miller, both allegedly by overdose.
Photo from Wikimedia Commons
There are many questions we can ask ourselves contemplating the death of our stars, but my roommate asked the question that grasped my attention the most.
As I arrived back home from a morning gym session, my roommate says to me:
"If you knew you'd be dead by twenty-six, would you live your life any different?"
I responded without any hesitation whatsoever: "Of course I would."
But how would I live it differently?
Would I go to every party my liver could handle?
Would I visit my family and spend the rest of my life with them?
Would I rush to find a wife in order to procreate?
Would I call everyone I've ever known, and tell them I love them?
Would I call everyone I've ever wronged, and tell them I'm sorry?
Would I donate the rest of my life to serve humanity?
Would I go travel the world until the day I drop dead?
Photo by Simon Matzinger on Unsplash
Would I make my way to Africa and reside with an indigenous tribe in a village where tomorrow and yesterday are words that don't exist, and the only thing that matters is today and right now?
Or would I finish my college degree, find a job from nine to five, and forget that my expiration date is just around the corner?
I believe that the question my roommate asked is the most important question any one of us could ever ask, especially us college kids at this time of our life.
That is because we all have one thing in common: dying. We will all die someday. I can guarantee you that.
But I don't want this to be a sad post. Just because we will die one day, does not mean that we should live our lives frightened and reserved.
Instead, we should celebrate the very fact that we are alive right now. We should be thankful that we can experience this magical life as a human being.
Thinking about our inevitable death should make us live our lives in the way that we truly desire, free of what other people think about us, free of any fear that tries to steal our precious life from us.
The very fact that we will die should make us pursue our wildest dreams, live out our childhood fantasies, the date that person we've had a crush on since freshman year, abandon those habits that do not serve us and live a life true to ourselves.
Imagine if every morning when you woke up, you told yourself:
"What if today is my last day alive?"
How would you live your life? Compared to yesterday, what would you do differently? Compared to yesterday, what would you do the same?
I believe that we should all ask ourselves in sincere honesty the very same question that my roommate asked me because there is only one thing that I truly fear: as I die and look back at my life, would I pray to God for another chance at doing it all over again? Or would I be satisfied with how I lived my life, and say to myself as Cartman says as he floats in the river in South Park's Season 7 Episode 11: that was "TOTALLY" worth it.
