ESSAY

Live Like You’re Dying

It’s hard to maintain perspective, but it’s the only path to sanity.

Live like your dying, they say.

I’m confident that if we found out tomorrow that we were dying, we’d be a lot happier with our present circumstances. I imagine I would be.

I heard this guy talk once. He was fighting cancer. It killed him eventually. But at the time he was fighting it. His doctors had him on a special diet which mostly consisted of foods he wasn’t allowed to eat.

One of the things he wasn’t allowed to eat was broccoli with cheese sauce. Something super random. He confessed that he’d never had broccoli with cheese sauce, but now that’s all he wanted.

Someone reminded me today of when I quit smoking. I did a 30-day juice fast. Nothing but fruit and vegetable juice and water for a month. I gave up alcohol, cigarettes, food and caffeine. I lost 30 pounds.

I gained all the weight back and then some (I was no longer smoking), went back to eating and drinking, but I never resumed smoking. It’s been ten years or more. I’ve lost track.

I would spend my time looking at recipes and reading about food, mostly in anticipation. I remember being completely enthralled with the idea of the simplest food. I didn’t crave ice cream or cheesesteaks. I wanted a soft boiled egg. I wanted rice and beans. Roast chicken. I simplified my desires.

What would we crave another day of, if we were running out of them? We are by the way. Running out of days. We just pretend we are not.

I’m making pizza now. I’m going to enjoy it.

Peace.