By confronting death, we highlight the shortness of life. This is a common tool to recognize and cherish the present. We never know where the road ends. In his post “The Tail End”, Tim Urban does this by drawing a 90 year human life in weeks, represented by boxes. He writes the post in the context of quality time with his aging parents and reminds us about the shortness of life. It’s a disturbingly compact visual of a human life:
Yet in the flow of our busy lives, it is easy to forget about the shortness of life. We might read about how short life can be and then promptly forget about it until a major life event slaps us with the truth. Why are we so bad at savoring life?
Earlier this year, I planned to live at home with my family for a few months while undergoing jaw surgery and orthodontics. My parents are ecstatic to host me at home, simultaneously putting me to work as their gardener, rodent control, and contractor. My little sister, 9 years my junior, happens to be at home as well. We hadn’t lived together since I was in high school, but the pandemic brought us together again.
Expecting a short stay at home, I planned to make the most of my time by capturing my parents' life stories on video. A realization during dinner sparked this idea: I didn’t have a good grasp on how my parents lived. We would get tidbits of stories as kids, but nothing comprehensive. The project was simple: record a series of long form, podcast style conversations with my parents to capture the story of their lives.
I drew out a rough plan for the conversations, but once we hit record, my plans and draft questions melted away. They talked and jumped into random rabbit holes, overturning stories even they forgot about.
My parents described their journey from early childhood in Taiwan to immigrating to the US and building their life in California. They landed without a penny in their name and were 45 days from running out of money before they had to return to Taiwan. Luckily, my Dad landed a job just in time and secured a small foothold in American life. They struggled through a few economic crashes, realized the American dream, and built a blissfully comfortable life for my siblings and me.
In total, we recorded 4 conversations, roughly 2 hours each. Watching my parents piece together 120 years of living experience and stories, many of which directly involved or affected my life, was an awe inducing experience. Upon finishing the last conversation with my parents, I felt a sense of connectedness and completeness inside. The experience is hard to describe in words, bordering on psychedelic.
I stumbled into research from a lab at Emory University that corroborated my experience. The Guardian summarized the research: “They found that the more the children knew [about their family history], the stronger their sense of control over their lives, the higher their self-esteem and the more successfully they believed their families functioned. ‘Hearing these stories gave the children a sense of their history and a strong intergenerational self. Even if they were only nine, their identity stretched back 100 years, giving them connection, strength and resilience,’ he said.”
After backing up the video recordings to a USB stick and every corner of the internet, I marked my project complete. I recommend the project to anybody and I suspect your parents will appreciate the opportunity as much as mine did. The worst that happens is you spend quality time together.
The glow didn’t last long, though. A week after finishing my project, I got restless. A slight complication with the jaw surgery resulted in frequent trips to the orthodontist and a longer stay at home. Restricted from exercise and stuck on a liquid diet, I descended into a sour mood, like a teenager stuck at home.
We are bad at savoring life because the negative events that remind us about the shortness of life are, by nature, rare occurrences. But why rely on these uncommon events? Can we draw on everyday moments, however simple or mundane, to keep us attached to the present moment?
After a few rough weeks, my jaw and teeth were on the mend. Coming off my liquid diet, I naturally found myself in the drive-thru of an In-N-Out one night. I was working my way through a Tim Ferris podcast when one of his guests, Sam Harris, asked listeners to consider: “all of the things in this life that you will experience, you will experience for the last time…long before you die, you will cease to have certain experiences.”
It’s the perfect way to actively frame the shortness of life so that it stays top of mind. We do a lot of things for the last time without even realizing it. When your favorite coffee shop closes, did you savor the experience the last time you were there? You’re suddenly allergic to a new type of food. You hang up the skis, the snowboard, the bike, the basketball shoes. You stop somewhere for a layover, never to return again. You have a conversation with a coworker on your last day on the job, never to see them again. Some examples from the podcast: the last time you wake up in the middle of the night to take care of your small child, the last time you carried your child, or the last time your child pronounces animal as “aminal”.
No matter how trivial an activity, there’s a last time. We probably didn’t notice when it happened. In the past month, what’s something you did for the last time? If you leave the planet today, what’s something you’ll wish you did for the last time? I reflected on my own situation: it’s unlikely I’ll get to live with my parents again, at least under circumstances where they are perfectly healthy. While I am close with my sister, I doubt she would voluntarily live with me through her 20s. It shifted my outlook immediately: I’m not in a rush to leave. There’s the last time my parents and I made ramen like college students because all three of us were hungry at 11:30pm. The last time I made silly faces at my sister while we’re working from home together. The last time we did our after dinner walk as a family. The irony? When we remember to savor the small moments, even under the threat that it could be the last time, we lengthen the experience of the moment.
Sitting in that In-N-Out parking lot, I munched my way through my burger—a transcendent experience after weeks on a liquid diet. I asked myself, is this the last time I’ll get to enjoy a burger after weeks on a liquid diet? I hope so.