24 hours to live

What if you had 24 hours to live? What would you do? This is a question I’m sure you’ve asked yourself or have been asked at least one time in your life, but the question usually comes with some level of brevity, like oh man that would be wild, I would go bungee jumping or some shit, I would fuck some shit up, like fuck it bro, YOLO, I’d do some bucket list shit or some shit. But imagine you are really presented with this scenario. To not only be aware that it would be your last day alive but to also be completely coherent while knowing this fact is an “opportunity” not often afforded to people. You might be terminally ill, and you might be given some time frame as to when you’re expected to die in some very particular instances, but even then you are more often than not deteriorating on some level, and you certainly wouldn’t know when exactly you were going to die, down to the day! So as much as the “what would you do if you had 24 hours to live” quandary can just be a wacky conversation starter, it really can be a thought-provoking hypothetical dilemma when you take the time to think about it. It can be sad to think about what it would be like to know of your impending doom, but also really intriguing to try to put yourself in that position. And that’s exactly what I’m trying to do here.

My first priority would honestly be to show appreciation to everyone who has had a positive impact on my life. I already try to make a more conscious effort to do that regularly, just showing my appreciation whenever I can. But 24 hours to live means it’s crunch time. Cut the bullshit, tell everyone my full and unapologetic truth. If I appreciate you on any level you’ll be hearing from me, no doubt about it. That being said I have a lot of ground to cover, so that could range anywhere from a one-sentence message to a full-blown conversation. But no hard feelings regardless. This time would be reserved for anyone I wouldn’t be able to come in actual contact with on my final day. As tasteless as it might sound, I feel like I would have to put out an “I have 24 hours left to live” video on my YouTube channel with one last goodbye because making videos has undeniably been a huge part of my life and it would be only fitting.

With the formalities out of the way, I can go on with living the remaining hours of my life. With some pep in my step I feel like I could have condensed that goodbye stuff into only a couple of hours. What to do with the rest of my day, though? I don’t know, even though the instinct might be to try to check off bucket list things, I feel like that would be something reserved for if I had a year or even a week to live. Because realistically, as much as I want to see more of the world, I don’t think it would necessarily be worth it to spend a significant portion of my final hours stuck on plane ride to somewhere just to spend a couple hours there. So as much as I want to see Japan, or go to Disney World, it just might not be in the cards for this scenario. With most bucket list things off the table, I’ve been kind of stumped as to how I’d spend the majority of this day, but I think I’ve come to a bit of a conclusion.

As ridiculous as it sounds, I would 100% host my own “going away” party and invite literally everyone I care about to join me. Not just a basic party of course, it would have to be a tour de force of experiencing all of my favorite things, with everything from basketball to just some good old-fashioned laughs. The things I enjoy are pretty simple when it comes down to it. As much as I’d like the chance to expand my life experiences much more, this scenario wouldn’t give me enough time to, so I’d just have to live (and then not) with some of the simple things. That being said, I’d do those things in the most outrageous and off-the-wall ways possible, given the time that I have to work with and however many people are able to join me on such short notice. Especially given this opportunity, I’m not the kind of person who would go out quietly. I’d like for my last 24 hours to not only consist of some valuable experiences that I can be happy with *at the end of the day* but also to consist of some valuable experiences for everyone else involved to be able to walk away from and remember forever. If I’m gonna be given this unique opportunity, I might as well make the best of it, right?