Ray Charles said to live everyday like it’s your last, cause one day you gonna be right. While the idea makes sense, that is one of the most horrible advice someone can ever give. It forces us to take unnecessary risks that doesn’t add any value to our life.
The classic shorthand for the advice is “YOLO” or “FOMO”. While life should be enjoyed, it shouldn’t be enjoyed so much at the expense of your safety. Everyone is subject to some kind of a limit. When you try to push your limits every day, you will become exhausted.
Even machines need breaks and to be recharged in order to function properly and efficiently. Your limits are there for a reason. It’s your body telling you when it thinks it had too much to handle. If you ignore it and try to go even further than that, that’s when bad things happen the most.
When you party hard one day, the next day feels like a drag. There’s no way that you have enough energy to party on again the next day. Don’t live everyday like it’s your last. Live some days like it’s your last and sprinkle in amazing days here and there throughout your life.
When you increase the high that you feel from one amazing day, you become dependent on that high. That’s no way to live. Who knows what kind of insane risks you’ll start to take as life moves forward? Live within the confines of your limits and go above it here and there.
However, don’t make it the norm. Otherwise, your brain becomes dependent on the high of dopamine and will only want more and more. Until one day, it’s too late and you gave it too much dopamine.
What Does it Mean to Live Everyday Like It’s Your Last?
To live everyday like it’s your last means for you to make the most of every day as if it was your last day on Earth. It means you should take as many risks as you possibly can today because you might be gone tomorrow, anyway. Think about it. If today was your last day, would you really spend it just watching TV?
No! You would spend the day doing wild and crazy things because you’re done tomorrow anyway. Who cares if you get arrested today? It won’t matter tomorrow anyway! Who cares if you take on a million dollars worth of debt and blow it all on one night of fun? Just put it on the plastic!
That’s what it means to live everyday like it’s your last. You don’t care about the consequences of your actions. People are usually hesitant to go all out and let go without a care in the world. We generally have an accurate sense of our limitations and what we should or shouldn’t do.
However, when it’s your last day, who cares?! That’s the mentality you will be in with this approach.
One way you can live everyday like it’s your last is to SMASH that social share button and post to your favorite social media! Your friends might be thinking of the YOLO approach when they really shouldn’t and this article can really help them change their mindset.
Remember that it’s not the present that really matters, it’s the future that really matters. The choices you make today will affect you some time in the future. Will you be happy or sad with the choices you make today? It’s all entirely up to you. Your future life depends on it.
Why You Shouldn’t Live Everyday Like It’s Your Last
The most obvious reason is that every action has some form of a consequence. Every input has some sort of output, no matter how small or large. That’s the problem with live everyday like it’s your last approach. Once you let go and start caring less about your decisions, consequences follow as well.
With careless input comes careless output, and careless output can be perilous.
More concrete reasons to not have the YOLO mindset is below.
1) Today is More than Likely Not Your Last Day
According to the social security administration, the probability of death for a given 25 year old male is 0.1556%. If you are 25 years old and male, you have a 0.1556% that today is your last day. Do you want to live preparing for the 0.1556% that it is your last day? Today could be your last day.
However, chances are far greater that it isn’t. Therefore, don’t live everyday like it’s your last. Prepare and build for your future. Build your life that you want to see out in 10 years. Life is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s not a good idea to be impatient for the big rewards that are coming in the future and go all out today.
Your rewards are coming in the future. As long as you are putting in the necessary work to actually make it happen, it’s difficult to not happen. Therefore, be patient and let time do its magic to bring you the rewards you deserve down the road. You will thank yourself by the end of it.
2) You Will be Burned Out
When you live every day like it’s your last, you will be exhausted even after a week of doing so. Your body is not biologically designed to live everyday to the fullest. We need breaks. Save the big celebrations for the ones that actually deserve big celebrations.
I have that one friend who I know who goes out every weekend and enjoys socially drinking with friends. However, I see him coming to work with baggy eyes, emotional instability, and a lack of concentration. Your body is built to have breaks in between large celebrations and events.
Otherwise, you’ll be emotionally drained after doing so. Think about the last time that you had 3 – 4 days of continuous highs. The last thing you probably wanted to do was go out again the next day. You probably really wanted to just relax in your house and pass the time with your thoughts.
Take breaks along the way and live healthily within the bounds of your biological limits. When you are burned out, find out how to handle burnout and get back to the course.
3) Life is a Marathon, Not a Sprint
If you continuously want to live everyday like it’s your last, it’s because you’re looking for something to fill the holes in your life. You’re chasing that external validation or factor that makes your life more exciting than it already is. That’s not the right way to go. Building your future and your ideal life takes time.
A long time, in fact. It may take years of hard work before you can finally start to live it up. Compound interest works in great ways that the vast bulk of your rewards comes out in the second half of the game. Don’t try to sprint your way to the line where you get to enjoy your hard work.
That’s the fastest way to sprain your ankle along the way. By spraining your ankle, it takes you an even longer time to reach the finish line. You need time to heal and you experience more injuries along the way. Grow and build your life in a controlled way. Otherwise, you may just sprain your ankle.
4) You Start Chasing More Highs to the Extreme
Once you live everyday like it’s your last, you start to become dissatisfied if you stop the highs you’re chasing. You experience withdrawal symptoms of not having enough dopamine. The extreme highs you fed your brain start to become the norm. So then you need more highs to feel normal.
You start to take even more risks in order to make you feel satisfied. The ones who take risks too far have many health problems, even early in life. Dan Bilzerian suffered two heart attacks before the age of 32. That’s what happens when you try to reach even higher highs every single day.
It’s fine if you grow steadily and in a controlled manner. However, explosive growth can only be managed for so long. I see so many bloggers reaching their coveted traffic levels because of a media mention. Then they try to surpass that traffic level and get disappointed when they fail to do so.
Don’t set yourself up for failure by having such high expectations.
5) Your Life is Already Good Enough
The ones who try to live everyday like it’s their last are unhappy with their current lives. If their lives are already great, there’s no need to try to reach higher. They reached the stage of “enough” and “being content”. Don’t try to reach for happiness but try to reach for being content.
By trying to go too big too soon, you drown in opportunity. Opportunities are truly unlimited. Whatever good things happened to you, there are plenty of good things down the road. However, your resources are truly limited. You don’t have unlimited hours in the day. You are still working under the same 24 hour clock.
Chances are great that your life is already good enough. You are working under limitations but are making the most out of the limited resources you have. Be content with what you have. Once you start wanting more and more, that’s when someone or something else has control over you.
Don’t let that happen because your life is already good enough.
6) Instant Gratifiers are Less Successful
Don’t live everyday like it’s your last because the ones who need things now are less successful than the ones who can wait. The ones who need to experience those emotional highs everyday to keep them afloat are the impatient ones. The impatient ones will always be overrun by the patient ones.
You don’t need to have things now. Whatever you want will always be there for when you want it later down the road. Anyone who tries to pressure you and convince you that it’s “limited supply” is lying to you. Pay very close attention to the last time that someone used the limited supply trick against you.
Did that actually turn out to be true? The majority of the time, it hasn’t. In my old place that I rented, they put up a sign titled “limited time only, rent specials!” In the 2 years that I’ve been there, that sign never went away or changed. There’s no need to rush into a decision.
Do Things You Want to do but Don’t go Overboard
If you live everyday like it’s your last, that’s a surefire way to go overboard. You are compacting a lifetime’s worth of joy into every day. That’s not natural nor can your body handle that kind of overload. There are limits set in place for a reason. Every body has some kind of limit.
It’s not wise to keep pushing towards that limit every single day. There’s a reason why our bodies sweat when we are out in the sun. It’s our bodies’ way of regulating the internal temperature so that we don’t overheat and get a heat stroke. There are biological limits to every one around us.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with doing things that you enjoy doing. No one is pushing you to just live and exist, counting the hours and days until the inevitable happens. You should go out and enjoy life. Travel and see the world if you actually have the chance to do so.
However, it’s when you go too far that it becomes a problem. How do you know when you went too far? You just feel it in your gut. You just know when you overexposed yourself to a single position in investing. Or when you know you had one too many drinks to put into your body.
Your intuition works in wonderful ways that tells you when something just doesn’t feel right. It’s passed down from your ancestors for generations to come for a reason. When you ignore your gut feeling and intuition is when you are going to run into trouble. Our mind works in mysterious ways that isn’t explainable.
Don’t Live Everyday Like It’s Your Last, Just Enjoy Life
So then, instead of living everyday like it’s your last and trying to look for deep meaning in everyday life, accept that sometimes, your days are going to be boring. Even the most exciting daredevil in the world has boring days. Therefore, just let things happen and do things if you want to and not do things if you don’t want to.
The ones who need to live everyday like it’s their last are looking for some other deeper meaning to spice up their life. It’s a way to distract themselves from feeling what they’re actually feeling every day. Most likely pain. They have a need to overcompensate for the lack of excitement in one area.
So they go looking for it in another area. That’s not natural nor should it be on everyone’s agenda. Instead, try to look for inner peace in other aspects of your life. Accept life for what it is and just enjoy the ride while you take steps to improve it for yourself. Everyone has the ability to.
This isn’t some hippie “go with the flow” saying. It’s a saying meant to keep you intact and to ask yourself if you are looking for something greater. Your life is already good enough. There are ways to make it better but it’s not going to solve the ultimate problem. Which is inner peace and happiness.
No one can take away your inner peace from you. Not the government, not your boss, nor your family. Once you have inner peace, nothing really bothers you that much anymore. Just live one day at a time and don’t try to push your limits to the point where you break.
Your life will be much better this way. Don’t live everyday like it’s your last.
Why You Shouldn’t Live Everyday Like It’s Your Last List:
- Today is more than likely not your last day
- You will be burned out
- Life is a marathon, not a sprint
- You are chasing more highs to the extreme
- Your life is already good enough
- Instant gratifiers are less successful
I’ve thought about this numerous times.
“Live every day like it’s your last” would imply that I should make decisions with no regard to the future.
But that’s the thing about the future–it always arrives.
What a great way to put it. Whether we like it or not… no one in the world can control time. So regardless if we live everyday like it’s our last or if we live everyday carefully… time still moves forward.