If you know you’re going to die, what would you do with the time you have left?

I dislike this question . The assumption is that we are all gallivanting around flagrantly wasting sacred moments of our life. That, if we got ourselves together and thought for a second, we could stop putting our peas into a Tupperware container and go climb Mount Everest (or something).

I feel like this question comes from a snotty, superior person who listens to too many podcasts. Like here

 I ask because I have a lot of gunk in my toothbrush cup—should I clean that or let it grow, plant it in the spring, and revel in nature? Because it’s gross but also, am I wasting my life cleaning it?

You see, I for one, need a different question, a different lesson and if you are a woman of this world, I bet you need it too.

I want to know how to stop the insanity of a world that wants me, to level up, relax, travel, meditate, invest, sign petitions and sleep more.  “Lean in,” they say. “Let them,” they say. Wash my face, Boss, Boogie, Be Here NOW.

So much pressure!

I’ve thought a lot about this and, if you’re interested. Here’s what I do.

I remind myself that I am in fact, already seizing the day.

I seize the day when I shower. Write stuff. Talk to my brother about how dumb the world is now.

I’m just finished a carpe diem moment.

I made a to-do list where I wrote: Write your next book, Ann.

What really bugs me is that a lot of this “Live your best life,” stuff is directed at women. If anyone thinks a women needs a reminder to do more, live more, waste no day, they are insane.

Look, I know I’m going to die, that drives me every day. In fact, I’d very much like to mute that knowledge so I could get a moment of peace.

I want to stare at a birds and not tell myself to go for a walk. I want to gaze into the middle distance and forget that I promised to work on doing more pushups than one. I want to tell myself to stop suggesting I do a pushup right now in front of that Cowbird.

The embedded assumption in this question in the title of this letter is full of unspoken shoulds.

You should do this.

You should do that.

You should live differently and you know what?

A should makes an ass out of you and me (I don’t think that’s the right quote).

Here’s a quote for you that I’ve carried with me since high school.

To be nobody but
yourself in a world
which is doing its best day and night to make you like
everybody else means to fight the hardest battle
which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.” e.e. cummings.

I keep this in my purse.

PS: Click here to read about my 3 favorite words–hint: one of them is-love. 

PPS: My email analysis says that my essay is 533 words long and I should try to get it to 600 words. I’d like to know what you think? I prefer a short email, to get in and get out.  But, maybe you’d like them to be a little longer?

You can let me know in the comments if you like. Or don’t. I’m happy either way.

I’m over here on Instagram for short, short, short notes about life.