What would you do, if you had a year to live?

An hourglass

Recently, I've been thinking about what I'd do, if I only had a year to live. I listened to a TED talk about how a guy redesigned his entire company by asking this question. The result was that he lifted almost all the policy rules that were promulgated, and his company still functioned. For me, this is a good question to ask, especially, because I'm also on a sabbatical - which is supposed to be a year long. So, it makes me wonder also how I should be spending my time on sabbatical.

I think any reasonable person would say that if they had a year left, they would spend more time with family and friends. I'd also like to add that I'd like to spend more time with my pets too.

So regarding my answer, that was at the top of things to do. But then, I thought, "One year - your friends and family have to work. So - although you might want to spend all your time with them, they have to go to work. What would you do during the time their away?"

Immediately, a number of things came to mind about what I would not focus on. I wouldn't care about a number of things that other people tell me are important for life, including making more money, defining a career path, and other stuff like that. And while I'm focusing on learning languages here, that would probably go too. (But on my sabbatical, it'll still be a focus.)

I think I'd focus on two things. The first one would be living a life that one could point to as being beautiful, courageous, and generous. The second would be to write more; I'd like to record the few lessons I learned - probably as a fictional novel. I'm sure these two points are interrelated.

In any event, I believe I need to spend more time thinking about this question.