A Day Is a Life
Set your sights on the horizon, and sail toward fulfillment.
I often think about how I hope to feel on my deathbed. What memories will spring to mind? I'm sure I'll daydream about my many adventures; but more, I'll recall mundane moments made miraculous by magical people. Will I be proud of myself? I'm sure I'll recount my greatest accomplishments, but I doubt I'll measure my success by any material metric — salary, net worth, bench press, or BMI.
Fulfilled is, in a word, how I hope to feel. Fulfillment is the ideal. But it isn't about how people will see me or about my legacy. Fulfillment is a felt, unquantifiable, immaterial metric best approximated by the answer to an impossible question: Am I ready to die?
An ideal is an aim that is approachable but unattainable; it is a singular point on the horizon. And the only way to pursue an ideal is to break it up into step-sized segments, like the zig-zagging path of a sailboat that trends due west across the sea.
If I ask, What can I do with my life so that I am fulfilled upon death?, the ideal remains obscured and distant, as if I'm sailing in a dense fog. But if I ask, What would I do today if it were how I'd spend the rest of my life?, the ideal becomes approachable. The fog clears. I think about who I should call, how I should workout, what book I should read, when I should meditate, and what I should write about. By looking at today instead of at life, I can steer toward fulfillment.
I could hate that I have not arrived, or I could accept that I will never arrive. That's the nature of an ideal. I will never reach fulfillment, but I can get closer every day; I can approach it. With that mindset, each day becomes an intentional step toward a single point on the horizon, and if I veer off course, I can always adjust my heading.
How I hope to feel about my life, before I die, is how I should aim to feel about today, before I fall asleep. I should treat every day as a life and sleep as practice for death.
What if I filled today with the life-content to which I aspire? And what if, tonight, I did not long for more of the day and found comfort in what I'd done, even without the promise of tomorrow? I wouldn't be ready to die, but I would be ready to sleep. I would lay to rest with the blissful thought of today having been abundant, sufficient, and I would be one step closer to fulfillment.
Springboard:
What is something you could do today that you would happily do every day of your life?
What is something you could do today that you would happily do every day of your life?
In this piece, I mentioned writing, reading, exercise, and meditation. Those are important to me, but the one thing I’d choose to do every day is to have deep, meaningful, challenging conversations — whether it’s with a loved one, friend, or stranger.
A conversation can be at once a source of connection and one of personal growth. That’s hard to beat. A single conversation can make a whole day.
Garrett, this is a beautiful frame for living, and your prose is an exquisite delivery. “Mundane moments made miraculous by magical people.” Masterful.
This essay is also compression at its finest.
I’m grateful for your contribution to my day... and therefore to my life 🙂.