Why Does Nobody Live Like They're Going To Die?

We all know where we end up - why doesn't anyone care?

I've always thought deeply about my own mortality.

Studying Stoic philosophy concepts like memento mori, spending hundreds of days meditating on the Buddhist concept of impermanence, and even getting a massive skull tattooed on my forearm just to have a constant reminder that one day I will turn to dust.

But no matter how much time I spend trying to remind myself that I'm going to die, when it comes to my daily life, I still live like I'm going to be here forever.

Doom scrolling for hours.

Procrastinating on important tasks.

Giving into the fear of living the life I really want.

It's a strange paradox: knowing that my time is limited should inspire action, but it often feels paralyzing instead.

I know I'm not alone in this.

The average person spends over 6 hours a day staring at a screen.

That's almost 18 years just staring at a glowing piece of glass.

Time lost we will never get back.

And when we aren't getting entranced by flashing lights and colors, what are we doing instead?

Working our asses off building someone else's dreams for meager pay and a few weeks of vacation?

Numbing ourselves into oblivion with drugs, alcohol, and anything else that helps us forget how empty and meaningless our lives feel?

Holding onto the delusional belief that if we keep doing the same thing, somehow our lives will get better one day?

"Tomorrow I'll start really living the life I really want!" we tell ourselves.

Or perhaps we completely resign to a meaningful life, believing our suffering will end once we die and go to heaven.

But what if that day never comes?

What if you were forced to live your life over and over again, exactly as you have, without any changes, for eternity?

Every moment, every action, every experience, repeated in the exact same order, forever.

In Nietzsche's "Thus Spoke Zarathustra," he proposes this exact thought experiment.

It's called Eternal Recurrence and Nietzsche considered it the most important idea he ever had:

"What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence...’"

Want to know if your life on Earth is heaven or hell?

Just ask yourself these questions:

Would you live the life you're living right now an endless amount of times over?

Would you make the same choices today if you knew you'd be repeating them forever?

If your answer is no, then it's worth considering...

What would you do differently?

Would you still chase the same goals, like money, status, and acceptance?

Would you still work a job you hate, or hang out with people you only tolerate, or do everything you can to keep yourself distracted?

What would you need to do to make your life worth living a million times over?

Eternal Recurrence is more than just a thought experiment - it's a framework around which you can create your entire life.

It forces us to fall in love with the life we have right now.

It encourages us to break free from the numbing routines and distractions that keep us from living fully.

We become more mindful of how we spend our time, who we spend it with, and what we focus on.

It's not about living a perfect life, but one that is deeply satisfying.

A life that, regardless of its challenges and imperfections, we can say "Yes" to and love fully.

If there's no heaven waiting for us after we die, if there is nowhere to graduate after this life, and only an endless cycle of birth and death, then we must create our own heaven on Earth, starting today.

We cannot afford to waste a single precious moment.

When death finds us, which it will, let it find us living.