I didn’t wake up this morning with a burning desire to author another dissertation on how to “live each moment as if it were your last.” Quite frankly, the Internet has plenty of them already and yet still very few of us actually live this way. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve all declared we would at some point…after a car accident, a catastrophic event, the death of a loved one or even a sad movie or show. But in the end it’s usually short lived and it isn’t long before we go back to business as usual.
Perhaps this isn’t the best way to approach life after all. Let’s face it, you honestly aren’t living that way now and you likely won’t start tomorrow. None of us will. It’s too grandiose of a statement for it to be a sustainable way of life. Live every moment as if it were your last? Every moment? Does that include the time spent doing your laundry? Visits to the dentist? While you’re stuck in traffic? That’s a lot of pressure!
I know that I’m sounding a bit too practical considering the subject matter but there is another option that I want you to consider. What if instead you were simply to live. To enjoy every minute of your life without the fear of it being your last? To squeeze every drop of juice from the orange. That’s it.
I had an old friend that lived that way. His name was Bart Kahn. I knew him from my “previous life” when I was a musician on tour with the Broadway show “Rent.” I can go on about how funny and talented he was. Or how he always had a way of making his presence known. Or how anyone that met him always seemed to walk away with a great story to tell. But as I sit here at his funeral I can’t help but think that this was a guy that really did squeeze every drop of juice from the orange. He lived each minute of his life, fully. We can all use to learn something from him. I did.
Thank you Bart.
About Marc
