4 ms·

Interesting post. I've tried this sort of thing before, being more conscious of "time left", but I found it just made me anxious and depressed. I'd continually

Interesting post. I've tried this sort of thing before, being more conscious of "time left", but I found it just made me anxious and depressed. I'd continually second guess whether or not I was working on the most meaningful thing, felt guilty, and I'd be overly impatient and agitated when forced to work on something I didn't care about. I have had better success thinking in terms of 3 year chunks; seems to be a good balance between giving myself time to get big projects done without feeling overwhelmed, but not so far off that today's actions seem too insignificant. Still practicing though. (On a side note, just about everything I work on takes more time than I'd like, which is continually frustrating. I haven't found a good way of thinking of self-set deadlines in a helpful way.)

fogihujy 6y ago
I've been doing something similar and have come to the conclusion that thinking in absolute terms, like "X days left", won't do any good since it results in vain attempts at trying to fit everything into a specific time-frame. The important thing is to be aware of the fact that one doesn't live forever, and that if we truly want to achieve something then it should be done now, rather than later. It's not that I don't have long-term plans or anything, it's just that I keep future opportunity into account when taking decisions. "If I want to do something, but not today, will I be able to do it tomorrow?".
- CaptArmchair 6y ago
  The corollary is this: "There's no way to predict the long future on an individual level." There's a hidden trap in thinking about "I have X days/weeks left" and that's the assumption that you realistically grow that old. The reality, though, is that plenty of people suffer cancer, cardiovascular diseases such as heart failure or strokes. Or they end up caught in traffic or work-related accidents. You could derive probabilities from population statistics and agree that, depending on your specific situation and with the information you have today, the probability of dying from any of those might be quite low. But that doesn't mean it's impossible. My personal - quite sobering - experience is having attended a fair share of funerals of people who passed away before they even hit 35. That doesn't mean that one should live life as if every day might be your last. That's not maxim I like to live by. It's important to keep perspective that you might live for many decades to come; but by the same token, one should remind themselves regularly that the opposite scenario exists too. In culture, this reminder is called "memento mori" (Latin: Don't forget to die) and it has been expressed through music, architecture, literature, poetry and so on many times. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori
  - fogihujy 6y ago
    Precisely. I don't expect to die tomorrow, but I probably don't have more than 30 years left either (based on average life-expectancy at the time of my birth). The actual expiry date is most likely somewhere in-between, but the fact is that very few people get to know until it's too late. Personally, I wouldn't want to know either.
    - ganafagol 6y ago
      Life expectancy at birth is quite different from life expectancy at say 50. Back in Roman times, newborn life expectancy was about 25. But life expectancy of a 25 year old was beyond 50. The remaining time increased. That's not the case today anymore, especially in developed nations, but you get the idea. Your countdown ticks with less that one second per second.
  - dawidw 6y ago
    > "memento mori" (Latin: Don't forget to die) It's slightly different (by your link [1]): Memento mori (Latin 'remember that you [have to] die')
ghusbands 6y ago
Meta: It might be worth investigating whether you have ADHD. Several things in your message point at it, and treatment can help. (Apparently needing deadlines to get things done, finding it tricky to self-set deadlines, getting agitated when forced to work on things you don't care about, worrying about relative insignificance of day-to-day actions)

fogihujy 6y ago

I've been doing something similar and have come to the conclusion that thinking in absolute terms, like "X days left", won't do any good since it results in vain attempts at trying to fit everything into a specific time-frame. The important thing is to be aware of the fact that one doesn't live forever, and that if we truly want to achieve something then it should be done now, rather than later. It's not that I don't have long-term plans or anything, it's just that I keep future opportunity into account when taking decisions. "If I want to do something, but not today, will I be able to do it tomorrow?".

CaptArmchair 6y ago
The corollary is this: "There's no way to predict the long future on an individual level." There's a hidden trap in thinking about "I have X days/weeks left" and that's the assumption that you realistically grow that old. The reality, though, is that plenty of people suffer cancer, cardiovascular diseases such as heart failure or strokes. Or they end up caught in traffic or work-related accidents. You could derive probabilities from population statistics and agree that, depending on your specific situation and with the information you have today, the probability of dying from any of those might be quite low. But that doesn't mean it's impossible. My personal - quite sobering - experience is having attended a fair share of funerals of people who passed away before they even hit 35. That doesn't mean that one should live life as if every day might be your last. That's not maxim I like to live by. It's important to keep perspective that you might live for many decades to come; but by the same token, one should remind themselves regularly that the opposite scenario exists too. In culture, this reminder is called "memento mori" (Latin: Don't forget to die) and it has been expressed through music, architecture, literature, poetry and so on many times. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori
- fogihujy 6y ago
  Precisely. I don't expect to die tomorrow, but I probably don't have more than 30 years left either (based on average life-expectancy at the time of my birth). The actual expiry date is most likely somewhere in-between, but the fact is that very few people get to know until it's too late. Personally, I wouldn't want to know either.
  - ganafagol 6y ago
    Life expectancy at birth is quite different from life expectancy at say 50. Back in Roman times, newborn life expectancy was about 25. But life expectancy of a 25 year old was beyond 50. The remaining time increased. That's not the case today anymore, especially in developed nations, but you get the idea. Your countdown ticks with less that one second per second.
- dawidw 6y ago
  > "memento mori" (Latin: Don't forget to die) It's slightly different (by your link [1]): Memento mori (Latin 'remember that you [have to] die')

ghusbands 6y ago

Meta: It might be worth investigating whether you have ADHD. Several things in your message point at it, and treatment can help. (Apparently needing deadlines to get things done, finding it tricky to self-set deadlines, getting agitated when forced to work on things you don't care about, worrying about relative insignificance of day-to-day actions)