One of the reasons you sometimes hear advice about living as if each day were your last is that that approach intensifies your appreciation for life. Here’s a press release from UC San Diego about research that produced some data on the emotional effects of a sense of limited time. Young people were asked about the feelings they thought they would experience in several different scenarios. The situations that involved time limits or an impending leavetaking of some sort evoked stronger and more complicated emotions. This certainly jibes with my experience.
http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/soc/TeuscherTimeLimits.asp
I’ve heard people say that if we could live forever, we would lose the motivational spur of having limited time, and also a certain poignancy that gives meaning to our lives. I’ve always wondered about the motivational part. I’d like to think I would accomplish bigger things if I knew I had more time to complete them, but on the other hand, procrastination is a powerful force even when I know I won’t be here forever. But there is no denying the emotional impact of the brevity of our lives. In one of his books, Heinz Pagels quoted the following poem, which has haunted me ever since I first read it. (I just Googled “Dendid” and found that he is a deity of the Dinka in Sudan.)
In the time when Dendid created all things
He created the sun, and the sun is born, and dies, and comes again.
He created the moon, and the moon is born, and dies, and comes again.
He created the stars, and the stars are born, and die, and come again.
He created man, and man is born, and dies, and never comes again.
