You have 30 days left to live. What would you do?

I read an article on Medium this morning. The author wrote about choices made and regrets held. Making choices at an early age can seem easier and less results-oriented and some of those choices can lead to regrets later in life.

Reading the article led me to ask "What would you do if you only had 30 days left to live?"

It is not as macabre as it sounds and does not mean one should plan every minute of every day for the rest of ones life. Perhaps many people would answer the question with things like these, which we have all heard almost ad nauseam - thank you, Hollywood script writers:

• I would quit my job.
• I would travel as much as I could. 
• I would visit my children, grandchildren, parents, college or high school buddies. 
• I would stop paying my debts and spend the money working on my hobby.
• I would...

While those are all well and good, to me they have a desperate sound of a person who has not lived a life so far and now wants to make up for it by cramming "activities" into a 30-day period. I wonder why.

For me the answer to the question is pretty simple: I would not do much different than I do now.

I have done pretty much everything I ever wanted to do in life...except fly helicopters for the tuna fleet. I have owned and raised an Old English Sheepdog, been married, been a firefighter and a paramedic. I have driven an 18-wheeler and a taxi. I owned a boat, and flew aircraft of all kinds for a living.

I have traveled to every state in the United States and several of the non-state territories like Puerto Rico. I lived in a bunch of those states and several foreign countries. I went to elementary and high schools in four countries, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and the USA.

I fought a war in the rice paddies and rivers of a faraway country and returned home in one piece but not so much in peace.

I bought fish off a commercial fishing boat in Homer, Alaska. I swam with sharks in San Diego Harbor, and I saw Janis Joplin and the Moody Blues in concert. I attended one of Buddy Rich's concerts on stage not long before his death.

In short, I have done almost everything I ever wanted to do and then some. My childhood dreams have all been met.

Have yours?

If one tries to jam a bunch of activities into the last 30 days of life, I am sure the end result will not be one of happiness, but one of deep regret for not having done some of the activities earlier in life.

So, if you do learn you have only 30 days left to live, well, simply live each day as if you have 30 days to live and you will have a happy life. Do otherwise and you will be a sad being, regretting the things you did not do and blaming someone or something for not having done them. Those last 30 days will be filled with angst, remorse, anger, frustration...and probably a lot of other negative feelings.

Start now.

Live.