It’s going to be a Monday, about six weeks after I celebrate my 82nd birthday. And it’s the day I’m planning to die on.
Why did I choose that date? Well, not for any big, significant reason, really. Basic life expectancy calculations place my death somewhere between ages 84 and 87. So I figured that, since most lives are marked by a downhill spiral in the last few years before death, I should choose an age a few years before that instead. I ended up picking the round number of 30,000 days of life, which lands on December 27, 2060. So that’s my Death Date.
Why I chose a Death Date
It seems a bit morbid to select the date you’re going to die, right? Perhaps.
I don’t expect to actually die on that day, of course. But if you want to achieve a goal, you need a deadline—even if it’s an artificial one.
My Death Date is my artificial deadline.
Counting down from that date makes the inevitable prospect of death a bit more tangible. It’s easy to think about death as this amorphous thing that only happens in the distant future. But seeing it approach in raw numbers helps ensure proper perspective. And knowing that date will be here sooner than I’d like provides motivation and focus to achieve what I want to before I die.