[dcurtis]

It seems simple, but this quote probably had the most profound impact on my life, more than any other quote I've ever read/heard:

"When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something." Stanford Commencement Speech, 2005

I still do that every morning.

[randallsquared]

I've always found the idea of living each day[1] as though it were my last to be odd. If I knew that a day was going to be my last, there are potentially fun or useful activities to choose from which carry a very high risk. That day would be the day to do things that have a significant chance of killing you any time you do them... and by "significant", I mean greater than five percent, say, not things like skydiving.

[1] Some versions of this idea use hour, and I've heard someone say "second". How do you live each second as if it were your last? No one who does this would last long; there's no point in doing most of what we do if we're going to die in the next second, right? But maybe people who say "hour" or "second" are just betraying that they don't really mean it.

[eru]

Perhaps you should do the opposite: Live every day as if it was your _first_.

[daniel-cussen]

Yeah, wouldn't blowing your savings on hard drugs be the rational thing to do in this situation? I agree the saying is kind of weird.