Steve Jobs famously said, “If you live each day as if it were your last, someday you’ll be right. Every morning I looked in the mirror and asked myself: If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I do today?”
Today I want to try to separate the useful part of this quote from the potentially harmful part.
Life is not a sprint; it’s a marathon. If a distance runner were to run an entire race as if it were the final stretch, that runner would likely not finish.
In the same way, imagining that every day were your last – that every opportunity were your only opportunity – creates a false sense of urgency that can cloud your judgment. If today were your last day, you’d be less likely to invest in long-term relationships, and focus only on those activities that generated short-term rewards. But that’s no way to live a healthy, successful life.
Rather than living each day as if it were your last, consider living each day in light of your last.
When you consider your last day on earth, what will you want to have been true about you? How might that perspective inform today’s decisions and today’s activities?
“But wait, Steve,” I hear some of you say. “Didn’t you say just two days ago not to place too much attention on the attraction of long-term goals and your desired destination?”
Yes, I said that. But here’s an important distinction to consider. When you imagine your last day, think less about the accomplishments you want to achieve or the experiences you want to have. Think more about the person you want to become and the values you want to have lived out.
If you live every day in pursuit of those values and becoming that person, you can apply the useful part of Steve Jobs’s quote, without getting caught up in the distraction of false urgency.
One of the things I help my clients do is to gain clarity on the person they want to become and the values they want to live out. If that sounds interesting to you, let’s talk. Visit https://stevedwire.com/connect for a complimentary conversation.
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