So you want to live forever?

So we’re still living longer and longer…

I’m not interested in writing about living forever from a global resource standpoint. I think there’s about 200 films that already do that. But I’m still fascinated by how it might change the way people live their lives… all our decisions about time.

Would you do very different things with your days if you knew you might never run out of time?

Let’s say you can still die by unnatural causes. You can still get shot and killed… so will you just stay inside because the risk is just too high to go outside?

Is it a different level of risk for you if you are risking 20 years of your life vs. 2000 years of your life by stepping into a fight or saving a cat from a fire?

Is it still worth it to you to risk your life for someone else’s? Understand that life can last forever, too – if you can hold your breath long enough to swim down to the bottom of the river, pull open that car door and cut the seatbelt that is winning the battle against the desperately struggling passenger.

Everything you do can be looked at from this new perspective. Can you put off saving money forever now? You have hundreds of years to make new friends, so do you cherish those you have any less?

How do you feel about having gray hair for a thousand years? Maybe you’ll rub something in your temples for a few hundred before giving in. How about those teeth? Sure they’re nasty-looking and you thought you’d only need them for another 20 years or so, but maybe now you’d rather not hide your giant smile for eternity. Yeah, maybe a dentist is in your future… you have time to save up for it.

Will you stop smoking? After all, it may not be worth it to quit if you’re just adding ten or twenty years to your life, but what if quitting adds a thousand years to your life? You know, until that one day you get all overconfident and careless and do something stupid like skip in front of a train.

Maybe now you’re not too old to start a family.

What habits are you willing to change? Will you work out more? Will you try to be nicer to people? If so many experiences were amazing and beautiful because they were temporary, do they no longer carry awe for you now that their ephemeral nature is completely lost?

What might you learn now that you have all this time? Will you pick up that guitar? Will you learn to speak French? How about finally really learning how to dance?

Right now, how many things do you think you don’t have time for? And when is the last time you called home? If you had forever would you put off that next call forever or would you think “Hey, now I guess I do have the time to make that call”?

You know you probably have time to make that call.