You're Going to Die Tomorrow

Sitting with the undone-ness of our lives

Captured by Jeff Ma on Unsplash

You’re going to die tomorrow. And in the shadow of this reality, you reflect on how much time you’ve spent yearning for a better life, chasing an ideal version of yourself that always seemed just out of reach.

You’re going to die tomorrow. And in that moment, you realise that you don’t truly know the person about to be covered in sand. You’ve spent so much time feeling they were insufficient, always waiting for a future self you would be prouder of, a self you would celebrate and embrace.

You’re going to die tomorrow. As this truth settles in, you struggle to recall any part of your life because you’ve dreamt it away, constantly reaching for more because right here, right now was just never enough for you. It dawns on you that in your quest for an elusive higher self, you ended up experiencing nothing.

You’re going to die tomorrow. And it hits you that in the pursuit of a grander version of your life, you neglected to experience the fullness of what your life was already offering.

Now, on the eve of your death, you’re grieved. Not because you are going to die tomorrow, but your acute awareness of how you missed out on the fullness of what your life was already offering. You grieve as you see how you were so consumed by what you thought you should be and what your life should look like that you never truly experienced the richness of the now.

And what a tragic end to one’s life that would be. How deeply troubling to have one’s end be met with deep regret over a life that was never fully embraced.

For most of our lives, particularly when we feel ‘left behind’, we are haunted by the societal milestones we have deeply internalized but failed or are failing to reach. Being unmarried, childless, and without a house or career devastates us and make us feel like our lives are less. And yet, when it comes down to it, we realize that we are devastated by other people’s dreams for us. And if you’re going to die tomorrow, you realize that your life, which was lived as a constant lamentation over things you never achieved, turns out to have been a lament over a life that was never yours to live.

You’ve wasted away your life mourning over the person you never became, a person that was never meant to be you. And now, as you face the end, you understand that you missed out on yourself. You were so consumed by what you thought you should be, you missed out on savouring all you had been.

Perhaps the radical resistance to societal expectations and definitions of success is to simply sit with where life has placed us.

I am not advocating for complacency or for ignoring our potential. I am advocating for a life of radical rest and radical peace. In a society driven by ambition, we are socialized from a young age to constantly chase something, as if who we are right now is never enough.

What would collapse if we just stopped striving? What if we embraced ourselves right now, in this very moment, as we are? What if we could sit with the supposed undone-ness of our lives, without agitation, without trying to fix or escape it?

What if the lives we are living right here, right now are, in themselves, a fulfillment, a gift? Reflect on how much rest and ease we might find if we accepted that who we are right now is just right for this moment. To trust that if there is more to be and do, it will come without us missing out on the present or toiling ourselves to death for it.

As I was working on this piece, I encountered a divinely timed post by Substack user, Disney Hall, titled, My Dreams Are Dying. Their words,

My reality is so beautiful just as it is,

struck a chord.

What if the profound shift we seek comes from acknowledging the beauty of our current reality rather than chasing an ideal? What if embracing who we are today, without striving for a higher version, could reveal a deeper satisfaction and peace in the now?

And if tomorrow were truly the end for you, how differently would you move through your life today? Because seriously, tomorrow you might die and the person you are today, with all your unfulfilled aspirations, is all you may have.

So, practice meeting each day with the tenderness and presence you would give to a loved one who only has a few months left to live. Embrace the here and now with the same care and reverence, for this is the only life you have.

Do not let your current, glorious self be eclipsed by future selves that may or may not exist. Do not let your life, as it is right now, pass you by while you chase after other lives that were never yours to live, anyway. Do not let your life die before it has reached its end.

Love,

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Point of reflection:

What would it look like to truly rest in your current existence, to allow yourself the space to be without the constant push for more?

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