Live everyday as if you'll die tonight, farm as if you'll live forever

I don’t watch a lot of TV. But my mum does.

One night around 8pm, I walked down the stairs of my Mum’s house to get a cup of tea. My mum was sat in the living room on her phone whilst the tv was blaring in the background and I couldn’t help but look at the TV and think “what a load of rubbish”.

Whenever I’ve lived alone, I’ve never had a TV in my room and I love walking into people’s houses where there’s no TV in sight.

It’s not that I’m special. I don’t like TV for one very good reason.

While living with my mum, I noticed how easy it is to be sat on the sofa and suddenly spend the next 30 minutes of your life watching the great British bake off or married at first sight.

After I’d realise the time I was wasting, I would then go and do 10 pull ups in the garden just to reclaim the lost testosterone. But mainly to reckon with the fact I was having the time of my life watching those shows.

In my mum’s house, the walk from the bottom of the stairs to the kitchen only takes around 5 seconds.

So I began the pilgrimage to the kitchen, got a mug out and put the kettle on.

A lot can happen while you’re waiting for a kettle to boil. You can reexamine your life. Think about a past relationship. Or your mum can suddenly barrage you with all the things she’s needs doing around the house.

However, this time I opted for the fourth and most dangerous option; standing in the living room and watching the TV.

There wasn’t a lot on. In fact adverts were playing.

I was just about to turn around when all of a sudden an advert for an upcoming farming documentary appeared.

I like nature I thought. So I turned to check the progress of the kettle, I’ve still got time, and then returned my gaze to the TV.

The ad seemed average, nothing new, nothing special.

But all of a sudden the shot suddenly panned to a young farmer talking to the camera amidst a backdrop of beautiful British countryside.

He looked at the camera, cocked his head back, seemingly responding to a question and he reflectively said; “live everyday as if you’ll die tonight, farm as if you’ll live forever”.

The kettle pinged. It was time to collect my tea. But you see, after hearing those words, I was not who I was before.

I brewed the tea. Gathered myself and returned to my room. I had some thinking to do. Credit to mum for having the TV on.

What this farmer will never know is that since hearing him share this insight, 2 years later I’ve thought about it everyday since.

Here’s why I think its the only quote you need to hear:

I’ve experimented with this quote in multiple different ways.

For one week I took it as literally as I could. I bought a memento mori (remember death) coin, kept it close to me every single day and went about my daily business as if that night, when I laid my head down on my pillow and closed my eyes, I would never wake up.

To say I remember that week would be an understatement. It remains in my memory as a week of stillness, deep insight and presence. I felt calm at the thought of death, humbled and most of all; clear.

Essentially, despite your lofty goals and plans for the future, and despite your ever working monkey mind, the true freedom and bliss you’re always searching for can only ever be found right now, no matter the dissatisfaction you’ve convinced yourself exists in your life.

We all think we understand, fundamentally, that we could die at any moment. But we understand this logically, not literally. Holding this quote at the forefront of your mind pierces through to the necessity of action and presence. You begin to speak to people as if that’s the last thing you’d say to them, because it might be. You do your work with essentialism and focus on the necessary.

The second part of the quote is misunderstood by many.

In the case of our farmer friend, he was literally referring to farming. However, I’m going to assume you aren’t a farmer.

Farming refers to your deep work, your purpose in life, the activities you’ve deemed most essential. The key word in this part of the quote is; forever as this unlocks the infinite game aspect of our work.

In his book the infinite game, Simon Sinek brilliantly highlights we can play either finite or infinite games. Finite games have a set of rules, players and after the game is played it ends. However, an infinite game has no rules, no defined players and it can never be completed.

A game of football, doing your tax return, working on something for 1 month are all finite games. Being married, wealthy or a deep student are infinite games. They cannot be completed. The goal is to merely continue playing the game forever.

This is what the last part of the quote captures.

Because if we stopped at the first part; live every day as if you’ll die tonight, you would likely scramble from hedonistic action to mindless fretting over how to optimise this moment for maximal pleasure. But the farming part prevents this.

When you farm as if you’ll live forever, you respect the process of time and understand; things take the time they do to happen. You cannot rush or force this process, but you can show up and do the work. 1 day of deep work won’t achieve your goals. But 465 days of deep work will give you a much better opportunity to do so.

In essence, philosophically, relationally and spiritually you live each day as if you’ll die tonight. Professionally purposefully you work as if you’ll live forever. On the biggest time frame you can possibly imagine.